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LUCKNOW The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday announced the biennial election to 10 Rajya Sabha and 11 Legislative Council seats in Uttar Pradesh, setting the stage for another show of strength between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) before the 2027 assembly elections. The BJP is expected to retain eight of the 10 seats and the Samajwadi Party is likely to gain one.
The election to the Rajya Sabha will also mark the end of the representation of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the Upper House of the Parliament. The tenure of BSP’s lone member Ramji Gautam ends on November 25 along with eight members of the BJP and one from the SP.
The BSP has no representation in the UP Legislative Assembly, Legislative Council and in the Lok Sabha. The lone BSP member in the legislative assembly Uma Shankar Singh died in August. In the biennial election held in November 2020, BSP national coordinator Ramji Gautam was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, though the BSP had merely 15 MLAs due to the support of the BJP. The nomination of an SP-backed independent candidate was rejected.
Rajya Sabha members are elected by elected members of the state legislative assembly. In the 403-member legislative assembly, BJP and its allies have 289 MLAs. The SP has 101 MLAs, Congress has two, Jansatta Dal Loktantrik has two MLAs and 3 MLAs are unattached. At present, the effective strength of the assembly is 397 as six seats are vacant.
In UP, based on the present strength of parties in the assembly, the BJP-led alliance is expected to retain eight seats, while the SP is likely to increase its tally to two
The BJP will work to increase its tally in the Rajya Sabha to boost the morale of party workers before the assembly polls. In the Rajya Sabha election held in February 2024, the BJP stunned the SP by winning eight seats due to cross-voting by SP MLAs in favour of the BJP candidate. To demoralise the SP ranks before the 2027 assembly polls, the BJP may adopt the same strategy in the upcoming Rajya Sabha election.
This time, the fear of cross-voting looms large in the BJP camp as well. There is unease among some BJP MLAs who fear they might be denied a ticket in the upcoming assembly polls. So, they might shift their allegiance to the SP for ticket.
The eight BJP Rajya Sabha members whose term expires in November include Brij Lal, Geeta Shakya, Hardeep Singh Puri, Seema Dwivedi, Neeraj Shekhar, Arun Singh, BL Verma and Dinesh Sharma, who has already resigned after being appointed lieutenant governor of Andaman and Nicobar. The lone SP member is party secretary general Ram Gopal Yadav.
UP chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa said the ECI has announced the schedule for the biennial elections for Rajya Sabha members from UP.
As per the schedule announced by the commission, the notification for the elections will be issued on September 29. The last date for filing nominations will be October 6. Scrutiny of nomination papers will be done on October 7. The candidates will be able to withdraw their nominations until October 9, he said.
The voting will take place October 16, from 9 am to 4 pm. Counting of votes will begin at 5 pm on the same day. The election process will be completed by October 19, he added.
Voting for 11 Council seats on Oct 23
The ECI also announced the schedule for the biennial election to 11 legislative council seats.
UP chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa said the terms of office of the members elected from the five Graduate and six Teacher constituencies of the UP Legislative Council will expire on December 6. To fill the vacancies, the commission announced the schedule for the legislative council biennial elections, he said.
As per the schedule released by the commission, the election notification will be issued on September 29. The last date for filing nominations is October 6, scrutiny of nominations will be done on October 7, and the last date for withdrawal is October 9, he added.
Voting will take place on October 23 from 8 am to 4 pm. Counting of votes will take place on October 27. The election process will be completed before October 31, he said.
The 11 legislative council members whose term expires on December 6 include Avnish Kumar Singh from the Lucknow Graduate seat, Ashutosh Sinha from the Varanasi Graduate seat, Manvendra Pratap Singh ‘Guru Ji’ from the Agra Graduate seat, Dinesh Kumar Goyal from the Meerut Graduate seat, Man Singh Yadav from the Allahabad-Jhansi Graduate seat, Umesh Dwivedi from the Lucknow Teacher seat, Lal Bihari Yadav from the Varanasi Teacher seat, Akash Agarwal (unaided) from the Agra Teacher seat, Shrichand Sharma from the Meerut Teacher seat, Hari Singh Dhillon from the Bareilly-Moradabad Teacher seat and Dhruv Kumar Tripathi from the Gorakhpur-Faizabad Teacher seat.
Rinwa said relevant provisions of the model code of conduct had come into effect in all districts of UP (except Kanpur Nagar, Kanpur Dehat and Unnao) in connection with the 2026 biennial Legislative Council elections. The code will remain in effect as per the provisions contained in ECI letter no. 322/ECI/INST/FUNC/BIEN-LC/2016, dated December 26, 2016, he said.
In the 100-member legislative council, BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has 83 members, the BJP alone has 79 MLCs while the SP has 10 MLCs. The BJP will work to increase its strength in the legislative council to send a message to the party cadre before the assembly elections.
