RS polls in Uttar Pradesh: Cross-voting cloud looms large over SP

The latest speculations surfaced on Feb 25 after the SP Jalalpur (Ambedkar Nagar) MLA Rakesh Pandey’s son and BSP MP from Ambedkar Nagar Ritesh Pandey formally joined the BJP

The Samajwadi Party (SP) is on tenterhooks over Rajya Sabha elections amid speculations over possible cross voting from the SP camp towards the BJP candidates. The latest speculations surfaced on Sunday after the SP Jalalpur (Ambedkar Nagar) MLA Rakesh Pandey’s son and BSP MP from Ambedkar Nagar Ritesh Pandey formally joined the BJP.

The SP has 108 MLAs and it needs 111 to see all three of its candidates through. (For Representation)

The SP national president Akhilesh Yadav will meet the party MLAs yet again on Monday over the RS polls and on Tuesday morning—the election day—he will tell the SP MLAs the order of preference in which the batches of party MLAs will have to vote.

Rakesh Pandey, however, denied the speculations, saying “It’s all baseless”. Meanwhile, the SP held a training camp for its MLAs at the party office for the second day in a row on Sunday to tell them the dos and don’ts while marking their ballot papers. On the first day on Saturday, Akhilesh was present at the meeting.

“We told the MLAs how to mark the ballot paper and other such things, including not using their pens for marking the ballot paper. In the two days, all party MLAs attended the camp. The four who could not attend were present on Sunday, while some who were there on Saturday, were absent today,” said SP’s chief whip in Uttar Pradesh assembly Manoj Pandey.

However, the SP MLA and Apna Dal (K) leader Pallavi Patel, who did not attend the camp on both days, met Akhilesh Yadav confirming that she would vote for the SP candidates. Patel had initially said that she would skip voting because the SP did not stick to its PDA (backwards, Dalit, minorities) formula while fielding the three candidates for the RS polls.

However, she changed her stance later and said that she would give first preference to Ramji Lal Suman, a Dalit leader, in the RS polls. The other two RS candidates of the SP are the actor Jaya Bachchan and ex-UP chief secretary Alok Ranjan—both upper caste members.

The SP has 108 MLAs and it needs 111 to see all three of its candidates through. Two of its MLAs are in jail and might not be able to turn up for voting. The SP has the support of two Congress MLAs and expects some Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Shuheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) MLAs to vote for the SP RS candidates.

The RLD and the SBSP were SP’s allies in the 2022 UP assembly polls and two RLD MLAs were originally the SP members who were fielded on the RLD tickets under the alliance. Similarly, there are three MLAs in SBSP who were originally SP members.

The SP has also sought the support of Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya ​who is Kunda MLA and the president of Jansatta Party (Loktantrik). Jansatta Party (Loktantrik) has two MLAs and the BJP too has sought his support.