The notification for by-election to four seats of legislative Council will be issued on Tuesday. Nomination papers for the same could be filed from August 29 to September 5 and the date of withdrawal of papers is September 8. Polling and counting of votes will be held on September 15. The Returning Officer for the by-poll will be Principal Secretary of UP Assembly Pradeep Kumar Dube.
The BJP is all set to win all four seats of the Upper House and all four of its candidates are set to be elected unopposed as the ruling coalition led by the BJP enjoys huge majority in the Assembly with 325 MlAs out of a total strength of 403.
On August 24, the Election Commission had announced by-elections on only four of the six seats of legislative Council which had recently fallen vacant after the resignation of five MlCs of Samajwadi Party and one from Bahujan Samaj Party. The ruling BJP still needs one Assembly or legislative Council seat to ensure that five of its ministers could stay on in the state cabinet.
By September 18, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma and ministers of state Swatantradeo Singh and Mohsin Raza have to become member of either of House to continue in the cabinet. They need to become members of the state legislature within six months of taking oath as ministers. The Yogi cabinet had taken oath of office on March 19.
Five of the six MlCs have resigned allegedly to accommodate these ministers. But the EC has refused to hold elections on two of the six seats on the ground that the remaining tenure of both MlCs was less than a year.
Though one Assembly seat has fallen vacant due to the death of BJP MlA Mathura Prasad Pal on July 22 recently, but it will not be possible to complete a by-poll on the seat before September 19.
By-polls have been announced for seats that fell vacant following resignations of SP’s Bukkal Nawab, Yashwant Singh, Sarojini Agarwal and Ashok Bajpai and Ambika Chaudhary. Barring Chaudhary, all have joined the BJP.
The term of Bukkhal Nawab and Yashwant’s would have come to an end on July, 2022, Agarwal and Bajpai’s would have ended in January, 2021. The other two MlCs — BSP’s Jaiveer Singh and SP’s Ambika Chaudhary — had resigned on July 29 and August 9, respectively. While Jaiveer too had joined BJP, Chaudhary joined the BSP before the Assembly poll. The term of Chaudhary and Singh were to end on May 5, 2018. According to EC sources, since the remaining tenure of the two members was less than a year, by-polls could not be held to fill these vacant seats.