Lucknow: The BJP on Friday took a sweet revenge on the Samjawadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party by ensuring victory of all its nine candidates in Uttar Pradesh, days after it lost two crucial seats in the Lok Sabha bypolls in the state. Samajwadi Party candidate Jaya Bachchan won the remaining seat.
The polls were marred by cross-voting from both the sides, which led to the defeat of BSP candidate Bhim Rao Ambedkar in the prestigious battle of ballots, touted as a test for the new-found bonhomie between the parties headed by Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati.
Besides BJP's prominent winner Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, others who made it to the Upper House of Parliament from the party are Ashok Bajpai, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Sakal Deep Rajbhar, Kanta Kardam, Anil Jain, Harnath Singh Yadav and GVL Narasimha Rao.
The party’s ninth candidate was Anil Kumar Agarwal, who pulled off an upset in a photo finish with the help of second preference votes. He had won 16 first preference votes to Ambedkar’s 32 but pulled ahead in the second round. A candidate needed votes from 37 MLAs to secure a seat.
Counting of votes had started after a two-hour delay as the opposition Samajwadi Party and BSP lodged a complaint with the Election Commission against two MLAs who are believed to have cross-voted.
BSP filed a complaint against its MLA Anil Singh, saying he did not show his vote to the election agent of the party before casting it and the SP lodged a similar complaint with regard to MLA Nitin Agarwal, who had switched sides after his father quit the party and joined the BJP recently.
With one BSP MLA believed to have cross-voted and two others in jail being denied permission to vote, it was always going to be an uphill task for the opposition to ensure victory for their second candidate.
While the ruling BJP was sure of bagging eight of the 10 Rajya Sabha seats, the Samajwadi Party fielded Jaya Bachchan and the BSP Bhimrao Ambedkar for the remaining two seats. They had banked heavily on the votes of two independents - Raghuraj Pratap Singh or Raja Bhaiya and his close associate and MLA Vinod Saroj.
Raja Bhaiya, who has had a rocky relationship with BSP chief Mayawati, had tweeted this morning that he was with "Akhilesh ji" and specified that it did not mean that he was with the BSP. Adding a tinge of surprise, Raja Bhaiya later met chief minister Yogi Adityanath, leaving political analysts wondering as to why.
“I discussed issues pertaining to my constituency (Kunda). Every MLA has the right to discussed matters related to his or her constituency with the chief minister," he said.
Keeping it ambiguous, BSP Anil Singh said that he had cast his vote and showed it to BSP agent Lalji Verma and the rest could be known from him. "I have cast my vote after showing it to Lalji Verma and he will tell you the details...I am with Maharaj-ji (Adityanath)," he said after voting at the Tilak Hall in the Assembly complex.
Despite the defeat, political observers said that this was a temporary setback for the SP-BSP alliance as it lost the number game but there were no cracks visible. The three parties – SP, BSP and Congress – voted as per their commitment.
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