Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his two deputies Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, along with state minister Swantra Dev Singh, will be officially declared elected unopposed to the legislative Council on Friday. However, another minister Mohsin Raza will be declared elected on September 11.
Opposition parties have not filed any candidate for this byelection. Returning officer and Principal Secretary (Assembly) Pradeep Kumar Dubey said in lucknow on Thursday that the four candidates, including the CM, his two deputies and a state minister, would be declared elected at 3 pm on Friday.
During the scrutiny of nominations, papers of all four were found to be in order. The scrutiny of the fifth seat will be held on Friday as Thursday was the last date for the filing of nominations.
The Chief Minister filed his nominations on the seat left by SP member Yashwant Singh while deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya filed nominations on the seat left by SP member Bukkal Nawab. The term of both the seats will expire on July 8, 2022.
Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma filed his nominations for the seat vacated by Ashok Bajpai and Swatantra Dev Singh from the seat vacated by SP member Sarojni Agarwal. The term of both the seats will expire on January 30, 2021. Mohsin Raza, the only Muslim minister in the Yogi Cabinet, filed his nominations from the seat vacated by BSP member Thakur Jaiveer Singh. But the term of the seat is just for around eight months as it will end on May 5, 2018. As all the seats will have separate elections, hence, the BJP and its allies which have two-thirds majority in the Assembly will win all the seats without any contest. Keeping this in mind, the Opposition decided to stay away from the poll. Yogi Adityanath and Keshav Maurya had won the last lok Sabha elections from Gorakhpur and Phulpur (Allahabad) seats respectively.
All five ministers will have to get elected to either House of the state legislature by September 18 when six months of their tenure as minister expires as they took oath on March 19.