After days of speculation, Election Commission of India (ECI) issued programmes for by-elections to four vacant seats of legislative Council where elections are scheduled on September 15.
Interestingly, the by-polls to the four Council seats were necessitated after the resignation of Samajwadi Party members, who have now joined the BJP. The seats that fell vacant are of Bhukkal Nawab and Yashwant Singh, who resigned on July 29 and their term was till July 6,2022, while Dr Sarojini Agarwal resigned on August 4 and Ashok Bajpai on August 8. The tenure of both seats are till January 30, 2021.
The by-polls will give respite to the ruling BJP as Yogi Adityanath and his four ministers would be completing six months in the government without being member of either House on September 18 and they have to get elected.
Still, one of the ministers in the Yogi cabinet will fail to enter the House and thus cease to be a minister. Speculations are rife that state BJP chief and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya might be sent to the Centre and in that case, the four remaining ministers could get elected.
The ECI on Thursday announced the by-poll dates for the four Council seats for which nominations could be filed from August 29 and end on September 5. On September 6, the papers would be scrutinized while candidates could withdraw candidature till September 8. and polling could be held on September 15.
It is expected that no Opposition party would file nominations and the BJP, who has two-third majority in the Assembly, would win all seats comfortably.