Ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh will be in majority just before the fag-end of their term as 36 members of the UP legislative Council elected from local bodies would retire on January 15, 2016.
“Once we get majority in the upper House our government would be able to breathe easy and many of our projects have been spiked or voted out because we are in minority in Vidhan Parishad,” Samajwadi party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhry, who himself is a council members, said.
Of late many legislations passed by the Vidhan Sabha, have been sent to the select committee and the government was forced to re-introduce them in the Vidhan Sabha. Precious time would be save once we are in majority, he said.
The Bahujan Samaj Party which has a strength of 45 members in the 100 member house, will go down to just eleven members after election. The SP at present has 29 members in the Upper House and are likely to add more in the coming days.
However, in the local bodies constituencies one member of the SP and Congress would also retire in January.
Prominent among the retiring members of the council onJanuary 15, 2016 are council chairperson Ganesh Shanker Pandey, Abdul Hanan, Kailash Yadav, Ms Annarpurna Singh (wife of mafia don Brajesh Singh), Ms Husna Siddique (wife of BSP council leader Nasimuddin Siddique) and Kunwar Jayesh Prasada (younger brother of Congress leader Jitin Prasada), all from, BSP.
SP member Akshay Pratap Singh, cousin of UP minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya and Congress member from Rae Bareli Dinesh Pratap Singh too will retire on January 15.
But the elections to elect 36 members for the the Council from the local bodies constituencies could be delayed as the panchayat elections in the state are underway. The notification for the election would be released soon
As per the strength of the legislative council, BSP is the largest party with 45 members followed by 29 of the ruling SP, BJP 7 members, Congress 2, RlD -1, Teachers group-5, Independent -4 and vacant -7.
Of the vacant seats five members to be nominated by the government has been mired by controversy after Governor Ram Naik rejected the names proposed by the Government. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav called on Governor on Saturday and he is supposed to have told Naik that a fresh list of nominees would be sent soon.