Rajya Sabha polls: ‘Mauni Baba’ files papers, unlikely to spoil anyone’s party

Till the ‘silent man’ from Mathura arrived, all 11 candidates – eight from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and three named or backed by the Samajwadi Party – had filed their nominations for as many vacancies

LUCKNOW The filing of nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha election by one ‘Mauni Baba alias Phalahari’ from Mathura broke the monotony of the polls to the Upper House of parliament, but this last-minute arrival of the twelfth candidate was unlikely to make any difference to the final outcome.

BJP candidate Laxmikant Bajpai files his nomination paper for Rajya Sabha elections, at Vidhan Bhawan, in Lucknow on Tuesday. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and BJP state chief Swatantra Dev Singh also seen. (ANI Photo)

As his name suggests, the candidate doesn’t speak and conveys his messages through gestures.

Till the ‘silent man’ from Mathura arrived, all 11 candidates – eight from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and three named or backed by the Samajwadi Party – had filed their nominations for as many vacancies.

During the 2022 UP polls, he had contested on a Shiv Sena ticket from Mathura’s Chaata seat and carried out a silent campaign then too.

The returning officer for the Rajya Sabha polls Brij Bhushan Dubey would take on the validity of Baba’s candidature during scrutiny, possibly on Wednesday.

“The results of the RS polls would be known after 3 pm on June 3,” said Dubey.

Mathura’s ‘Mauni Baba’ filed his candidature after eight BJP candidates, all of whom are likely to be elected, filed their nominations before Dubey in the presence of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak.

Assured of victory, the BJP’s eight – former state BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai, former lawmaker from Gorakhpur (urban), a paediatrician Dr Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, former SP MP Surendra Nagar, BJP’s women wing vice-president Darshana Singh, secretary Sangeeta Yadav and chairman of the Backward Class Finance and Development Corporation Baburam Nishad, Mithilesh Kumar, former lawmaker from Shahjahanpur and Kova Laxman, the BJP’s OBC cell chief from Telangana (only one from outside UP), wore a garland for their nomination.

The three SP candidates or the ones backed by the chief opposition party – eminent lawyer Kapil Sibal, who resigned from the Congress to contest as independent with SP’s backing, Javed Ali and SP ally Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Jayant Chaudhary – had already filed their nominations on separate days.