The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday, 15 April released a list of 10 candidates for Legislative Council polls in Uttar Pradesh and three candidates in Bihar, nominations for which will close on Monday.
The notification for the legislative council polls was issued on 9 April. Scrutiny of nominations will be done on 17 April, while the last date for withdrawal of the candidature is 19 April.
Voting for 13 seats in Uttar Pradesh legislative council and 11 in Bihar legislative council will be held on 26 April and the results will be declared on the same day.
In Uttar Pradesh, the term of office of 13 members of Legislative Council elected by the Members of Legislative Assembly will expire on 5 May, which includes names like former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Mohsin Raza and others.
While in Bihar, the term of 11 members of Legislative Council which is due to expire on 6 May are - Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi and others.
Four Political Turncoats From Last Year Figure on 2018 List
Among the 10 candidates for UP seats are Bukkal Nawab, Yashwant Singh and Jaiveer Singh, who had left rival parties to join the BJP after its win in the Assembly polls. Mohsin Raza, the only Muslim minister in Yogi Adityanath's Cabinet, finds his name on the list. Former Samajwadi Party leader Bukkal Nawab, who switched to the BJP last year, is also among the 10 nominees.
Other candidates for the UP polls are Mahendra Singh, Sarojini Agarwal, Vidya Sagar Sonkar, Vijay Bahadur Pathak, Ashok Kataria and Ashok Dhawan. Kataria, Sonkar and Pathak are general secretaries of the state BJP unit, while Dhawan, a former MLC, hails from Varanasi.
Four political turncoats, who had resigned from their membership in the UP Legislative Council last year to facilitate the CM and other cabinet colleagues’ membership in the Upper House figure on the list this year.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the ruling BJP sounded confident of bagging 11 of the 13 seats.
The BJP and its allies enjoy a brute majority of 324 in the 403-member state Assembly. Arithmetically, they are likely to win 11 of the 13 seats comfortably and still be left with some additional votes.
Bihar’s Deputy Minister Figures on the List
The BJP also released the list of three candidates for Bihar Legislative Council polls. Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi is among the three nominees.
Two other candidates are Mangal Pandey, a minister in the Nitish Kumar government, and Sanjay Paswan, a former Union minister who hails from an influential Dalit community.
The candidature of Paswan, who was kept out of any important responsibility within the organisation for several years, underlines the saffron party's renewed vigour to win over Dalits in a state where they will be key in the direct fight between the BJP-JD(U) combine and the RJD-Congress alliance.
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