The Election Commission announced the program on Wednesday for 12 seats of Uttar Pradesh State Legislative Council.
According to the Election Commission, election notification will be issued on January 11 and the nomination process will start from the same day. The last date of nomination has been fixed on January 18 while the nomination papers will be scrutinized on the 19th. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is January 21 while voting will be held on January 28 from 9 am to 4 pm. The counting of votes will take place on the same day and all results will be declared.
Significantly, the term of 12 members of the Legislative Council ends on January 30. These members include Deputy Chief Minister of the state Dr. Dinesh Sharma, State President of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Swatantradev and Ahmed Hasan of Samajwadi Party (SP), besides Ashu Malik, Dharamvir Singh Ashok, Pradeep Kumar Jatav, Ramesh Yadav, Ramjatan, Laxman Prasad Acharya, Virendra Singh, Sahab Singh Saini. Apart from these, his membership was already terminated under the defection law after Nasimuddin Siddiqui joined the Congress.
On the other hand, the sources claim that the BJP can win at least ten seats in the elections to the twelve seats of the Legislative Council and if the Bahujan Samaj Party has the support, then it can get one more seat. Currently SP has six seats out of these 12 seats while BJP and BSP have three seats each. Ten seats in the BJP's account and one seat in the SP's account. If the BJP is supported by the BSP, then the party can also win the 11th seat. Despite the BSP having 19 members in the assembly, one of its candidates won the Rajya Sabha election.
The BJP did not increase its trouble by raising another candidate, but at the last moment, the SP had offended BSP chief Mayawati by taking down one of her candidates. The SP candidate's form was rejected and the BSP candidate won. Then Mayawati said that the Legislative Council will not be left behind even helping the BJP to defeat SP in the elections. If Ms. Mayawati continues to do what she says, then the BJP may also have an eleventh seat.