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Rajya Sabha Polls in Uttar Pradesh: Uphill task for SP’s 3rd candidate amid cross-voting challenge
The SP is already facing criticism from within and outside for not fielding any non-Yadav OBC and Muslim for the elections despite harping on PDA (pichada, Dailt, alpsahnkhyak) formula for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Samajwadi Party now faces an uphill task as it is no longer sure of getting its third candidate elected after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fielded an eighth nominee for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh, a development that has ignited the possibility of cross-voting in favour of the ruling party to upset the applecart of the Akhilesh Yadav-led party.
The SP is already facing criticism from within and outside for not fielding any non-Yadav OBC and Muslim for the elections despite harping on PDA (pichada, Dailt, alpsahnkhyak) formula for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Samajwadi Party has fielded three candidates -- two of them kayasthas (current Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan and ex-UP chief secretary Alok Ranjan) and a Dalit, Ramji Lal Suman. Besides, the party will have to brief its MLAs about voting and issue a whip.
In case of “unforeseen circumstances (cross voting)”, the party MLAs will be told to put one of the two Kayastha candidates on the third preference, party insiders said.
The party will ensure the victory of its Dalit candidate Ramji Lal Suman and it is not in a position to compromise on this. The SP has no Dalit in the Rajya Sabha at present.
Since Tuesday, Samajwadi Party MLA (though from Apna Dal-K) Pallavi Patel has been saying that she will abstain from voting for the SP as it deviated from the PDA formula and fielded a film star and a former bureaucrat for the election instead of an OBC.
“Yes, I maintain my stand. I will abstain,” she reiterated on Thursday.
“But we are in a position to make all our three candidates win—easily. And Pallaviji too will vote for the SP candidate. We have a total of 108 MLAs (including Pallavi Patel) and we also have the support of two Congress MLAs—this makes our figure 110. We need 111 votes to make all three of our candidates sail through. We have support in two non-BJP parties also,” said SP chief whip Manoj Pandey.
In its official list of 108 MLAs, there is uncertainty over three MLAs—Pallavi Patel and the two jailed SP MLAs—Ramakant Yadav and Irfan Solanki. Solanki and Ramkant Yadav will only be able to vote if they get bail for the voting day. So currently, the SP has 105 voters against the minimum requirement of 111 votes for clear victory of its three candidates. The SP hopes that Pallavi Patel will eventually vote for the SP following her statement that she will participate in the SP’s INDIA bloc partner Congress’ Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. Pallavi said that she will indeed join the Nyay Yatra in its Varanasi leg.
Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Aradhana Mishra Mona said: “Of course, we will go with the SP candidates, it’s only natural.”
An SP MLA said: “We do have SP loyalist MLA and in SBSP (Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).”
In the 2022 U.P. assembly polls, the SP had fielded its leader Abbas Ansari as an SBSP candidate under a seat-sharing agreement with the SBSP (after the polls, the SBSP parted ways with the SP and later joined the NDA).
The RLD with its nine MLAs has snapped ties with its long-time ally—the Samajwadi Party and has joined the BJP-led NDA.
Notwithstanding the confidence that the SP is displaying that all its candidates will win, there is tension in the SP camp that the rivals will lure some of the party MLAs to cross-vote in favour of the BJP’s eighth candidate Sanjay Seth. The BJP has enough votes to make seven of its original candidates win and the eighth candidate will have to bag around eight votes from the SP camp. The SP fears that the BJP will orchestrate cross-voting by luring the required number of SP voters.
The voting in Rajya Sabha is through an open voting system. The voters will have to show their voting and voting preferences to their polling agent. This means anyone who will cross-vote would be identified and may face expulsion from the party and then subsequent request to the Vidhan Sabha speaker for their disqualification. The BJP may then field those disqualified members to recontest the seats as its party candidates and may promise some of them a Lok Sabha ticket.
There is disgruntlement in the Samajwadi Party over not following the PDA formula in RS polls. The PDA is a term coined by the SP chief Akhilesh Yadav meaning Pichada (backward classes), Dalit, and Alpsankhyak (minorities). But the SP has fielded a Dalit and two upper castes for three seats. The SP currently has three RS members—a Muslim (Javed Ali Khan), a Yadav (Ram Gopal Yadav), and a kayastha (Jaya Bachchan). There is no Dalit and no non-Yadav OBC.
The PDA is Samajwadi Party’s formula for the 2024 elections—the three communities together form roughly 85% of the U.P’s population.
