Uttar Pradesh Rajya Sabha polls: Focus on the last candidate

Lucknow: All eyes will be focused on BJP-backed independent candidate Preeti Mahapatra , a businesswoman from Gujarat, whose presence has made election to Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh interesting polling for which was underway in Lucknow on Saturday. Her nomination, in fact, had necessitated the polling.

Amar Singh from ruling Samajwadi Party , Kapil Sibal from Congress and BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra are some of the prominent candidates in the fray. SP has fielded seven candidates including former Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma and senior party leader Kunwar Reoti Raman Singh.

There are 12 candidates to vie for 11 RS seats falling vacant next month. polling for RS seats.There seems to be a little hope , if any ,of history created by Rajiv Shukla in 1990s being repeated in the Rajya Sabha election from Uttar Pradesh.The hope was created following nomination by Preeti Mahapatra ,who must have been assured of cross-voting by members of different political parties.

But, going by the current trend, the hope is likely to be belied. There are several factors which are different from the past and which are going against Preeti. On BJP’s support alone she cannot sail through and there is little chance of a large number of members from other parties backing her, as had happened in case of Shukla.

She might have pinned her hope on smaller parties and parties not contesting the election to come to her rescue. But this hope is also dashed. Take for instance the RLD which has not put up any candidate. The party has decided to back the Congress and the SP.

The scenario was different during Shukla’s time.During that time Naresh Agarwal- led Congress had fully backed him. But now Preeti Mahapatra cannot expect much support from the Congress. It was mainly due to his dent into the SP that a senior party leader like Janeshwar Mishra could be elected after the second round of counting.She has not been able to make inroads into the party. But there is no hope of any major support from this party either.

Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has asked his brother Shivpal Singh Yadav to keep the flock together and see that no party member supported any other party candidate. He has worked hard to achieve this goal. In addition, he has managed to win over eight RLD members who are expected to back SP candidates. Six other members are also likely to go for the party due to his efforts.