Lucknow: With no other candidates in the fray, BSP’s Bhim Rao Ambedkar along with 12 others, were elected unopposed to the UP Legislative Council on Thursday, which was the last day to take back the nominations. With no extra candidates fielded for the Upper House, all 13 candidates were elected to Legislative Council unopposed.
The Samajwadi Party had sent Naresh Uttam Patel on its ticket to the Legislative Council while for the second berth, they supported BSP candidate Bhim Rao Ambedkar. The move was seen as a goodwill gesture from SP after the BSP candidate lost the Rajya Sabha elections last month even after being supported by both SP and Congress.
The gesture is also being seen as an attempt by Akhilesh Yadav to cement SP’s growing ties with the BSP and forge an alliance in order to defeat BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, the ruling BJP has sent 10 of its candidates to the Legislative Council, including Dr Mahendra Singh, Mohsin Raza, Dr Sarojini Agarwal, Bukkal Nawab, Yashwant Singh, Jaiveer Singh, Vidhyasagar Sonkar, Vijay Bahadur Pathak, Ashok Kataria and Ashok Dhawan, while one seat was left for its ally Apna Dal (S) on which its national president Ashish Singh Patel was elected as an MLC.
With two Muslims in the Legislative Council — Mohsin Raza and Bukkal Nawab — the list is once again being dominated by the Thakurs over the Brahmins. CM Yogi Adityanath belongs to the Thakur community.
Yogi Adityanath congratulated the newly elected members of the council and tweeted, “I hope that all the newly elected members of the Legislative Council will work towards strengthening the democracy while discharging their duty in sync with the Indian Constitution, and they will contribute towards the development of the state.”
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