Fears of cross-voting and horse-trading have injected a great deal of suspense in the biennial elections for 11 Rajya Sabha (RS) and 13 Uttar Pradesh legislative Council seats, next week.
The RS contest has taken an interesting turn with Independent candidate Preeti Mahapatra filing her papers at the last moment as the 12th candidate for the 11 existing seats, thereby forcing elections.
Preeti is a social worker from Gujarat and the wife of an industrialist-cum-diamond merchant. Her nomination was proposed by several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MlAs, members of smaller parties and Independents.
The ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) has fielded seven candidates in the RS, but the seventh candidate of the party is short of nine first- preference votes for ensuring a berth to the Upper House. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on the other hand can get both its nominees elected and will be left with 12 spare votes.
BJP MlAs can elect their party nominee, Uttar Pradesh unit vice-president and former State Minister Shiv Pratap Shukla and will have seven additional votes. The Congress, with an strength of 29 members in the Assembly, is five votes short of ensuring the election of its candidate Kapil Sibal. Each candidate will require 34 first-preference votes to make it to the RS.
The RS candidates in the fray are, Amar Singh, Beni Prasad Verma, Kuwar Rewati Raman Singh, Vishambhar Prasad Nishad, Sukhram Singh Yadav, Sanjay Seth and Surendra Nagar (all SP), Satish Chandra Mishra and Ashok Sidharth (both BSP), Kapil Sibal (Congress), Shiv Pratap Shukla (BJP) and Preeti Mahapatra (Independent).
Similarly, with 14 candidates trying their luck against the vacancy of 13 seats of the legislative Council, cross-voting by legislators during the poll process remains a high probability.
Each candidate needs 29 first-preference votes to get elected. In the 404-member Assembly, (403 elected and one nominated Anglo-Indian member) the ruling SP has 229 MlAs, BSP 80, BJP 41, Congress 29 with the rest belonging to small parties and Independents.
The BJP, with the support of an Independent MlA, has named two candidates for the legislative Council and will need 16 votes for its second candidate.
Returning Officer and Principal Secretary (Assembly) Pradeep Kumar Dubey said in lucknow that nomination papers of all 12 candidates of the RS and 14 of the legislative Council were found to be in order during the scrutiny held in the presence of candidates and an observer of the Election Commission.
He, however, said a clear picture of the elections would emerge after the last date of withdrawal of papers on June 3. The polls for the legislative Council are slated for June 10 and that for the RS the next day.
Dubey said, “Cross-voting by MlAs would not attract the provisions of the Anti-defection law and ultimate disqualification of the MlA from the membership of the House as per a recent court ruling. Political parties can issue a whip for enforcing discipline on their respective MlAs and can also take action, but the membership of the legislators involved in cross-voting won’t be affected.”
With this legal position, cross-voting is now a fait accompli during the elections.
The candidates vying for the council seats are, Yashwant Singh, Bukkal Nawab, Ram Sunder Das Nishad, Balram Yadav, Jagjivan Prasad, Shatrughan Prakash, Kamlesh Pathak and Ranvijay Singh (all of SP), Atar Singh Rao, Dinesh Chandra and Suresh Kashyap (BSP), Bhupendra Choudhury and Dayashanker Singh (both BJP) and Deepak Singh (Congress).