BSP Announces Bhimrao Ambedkar as Their Rajya Sabha Candidate

Lucknow: The Bahujan Samaj Party has announced that a former MLA of the party, Bhimrao Ambedkar, as their nominee for the Rajya Sabha.

Hailing from Etawah, Ambedkar, who shares his name with the Dalit idol, represented Lakhna Assembly constituency.

He was in the headlines in 2010 when an executive engineer of irrigation department in Etawah sent his resignation letter to then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and had accused the BSP MLA of threatening him.

Samajwadi Party, BSP and the Congress can together send two candidates to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh. The BSP has 19 seats, the SP has 47 and the Congress six. Each candidate requires 33 votes in the house to win.

After the SP ensures the entry of one of its candidates to the Rajya Sabha, it will be left with nearly 14 spare votes. Added to the BSP’s tally, this enough to ensure their candidate is elected.

Earlier, BSP supremo Mayawati’s brother and vice president of the party, Anand Kumar, denied rumours that he was going to contest and said. “All these rumours about me being a Rajya Sabha candidate are false. Some people are spreading these rumours just to increase their TRP.”

Mayawati had resigned from the Rajya Sabha in a huff last year, accusing the Chair of not allowing her to speak on atrocities against Dalits. She had then appointed her brother to the second-most important position in the party. Speculation was rife that the move was aimed at sending Kumar to the Upper House.

Declaring her support for the Samajwadi Party candidates for Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls, Mayawati had said, “Right now we don’t have sufficient numbers for the Rajya Sabha, but if the Samajwadi Party will support us then we are going to support their candidate in MLC elections.”

“On Congress, I want to be clear that if the Congress wants our vote for Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, then they have to vote for our candidate in Uttar Pradesh,” she added.