The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday won eight out of ten Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh. The Opposition Samajwadi Party managed to win two seats from the state.
The Uttar Pradesh Assembly has 403 MLAs, but the voting strength on Tuesday was at 399 as four seats were vacant. Each candidate required 37 votes to win.
The BJP candidates who won the polls were former Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, general secretary of the party's Uttar Pradesh unit Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant (Bind), party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh, former Agra mayor Naveen Jain and industrialist Sanjay Seth.
From the Samajwadi Party, actor-turned-politician Jaya Bachchan and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman won the polls. The party had also fielded former state chief secretary Alok Ranjan as its third candidate. However BJP’s decision to field an eighth candidate led to a close competition and reports of cross-voting.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said that the voting for the third seat in Rajya Sabha revealed the true supporters of the party.
“Our third seat in the Rajya Sabha was actually a test to identify our true supporters and to know who was with the PDA [backwards, Dalits, marginalised] at heart and who was against the backward classes, Dalits and minorities by conscience,” Yadav said in a tweet. “Now everything is clear, this is the victory of the third seat.”
Ahead of the voting, Samajwadi Party’s chief whip Manoj Pandey had resigned from his post. On Monday, Pandey and seven other MLAs had skipped a meeting with Yadav to discuss the Rajya Sabha polls, causing speculation that some party leaders may cross-vote on Tuesday.
BJP wins lone seat in Himachal Pradesh
Besides Uttar Pradesh, voting for Rajya Sabha seats took place for one seat in Himachal Pradesh and four seats in Karnataka.
Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost to the BJP’s Harsh Mahajan in Himachal Pradesh as nine MLAs cross-voted in favour of the saffron party.
In the 68-member Assembly, the Congress had 40 MLAs and the backing of three Independents while the BJP only had 25 MLAs. However, due to cross voting, the former Congress leader who joined the BJP in 2022 defeated Singhvi.
Fearing a split within the government in Himachal, the Congress has appointed senior leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Karnataka deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar as observers, reported The Indian Express.
Congress wins three seats in Karnataka
In Karnataka, the Congress on Tuesday won three seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party won a single seat.
The ruling Congress won all the three seats that it contested in the southern state with the winning candidates being Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and GC Chandrasekhar. Narayansa Bhandage won from the BJP.
National Democratic Alliance close to majority in Rajya Sabha
The Bharatiya Janata Party won 30 of the 56 vacant seats in the Rajya Sabha during elections to the Upper House of Parliament on Tuesday, ANI reported. This leaves the BJP led-National Democratic Alliance coalition just four seats short of the House’s 121-seat-majority.
The BJP now has 97 seats in the 240-member House. This will take the National Democratic Alliance parties’ tally to 117 when the 56 new members are sworn in.
Forty-one candidates were elected to the Rajya Sabha unopposed last week, of which 20 belonged to the BJP. The elections were held as 50 MPs will complete their term in the House on April 2 and six will retire on April 3.
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