LUCKNOW The Samajwadi Party, apparently apprehending cross-voting from its own MLAs in the Rajya Sabha elections, overprotected its first two out of three candidates, allocating much more than required number of votes for their victory.
The party’s move suggests that it may have apprehended a larger breach in the poll. The Bharatiya Janata Party ensured victory for all its eight candidates while the SP’s two candidates won in the Rajya Sabha election held for 10 seats here on Tuesday.
The SP had fielded three candidates, including cine star-turned-politician Jaya Bachchan, Ramji Lal Suman and former chief secretary Alok Ranjan. While Bachchan and Suman won, the former bureaucrat lost the poll.
An analysis of the Rajya Sabha poll results indicates that the SP allocated 41 votes for Bachchan and 40 for Suman against the winning quota, which was initially considered to be 3,700 (37 votes) and went down to 3,582 (36 votes) following an abstention and an invalid vote.
“The SP allocated much more than the initial required quota of 37 votes. The BJP allocated only 38 votes to its candidates, which was just one extra vote to protect its candidates in case of any possible error by its candidate. The SP’s move indicates either the party was overprotective for its first two candidates, or it apprehended much more cross-voting from its ranks,” said at least two persons aware of the development.
{{/usCountry}}“The SP allocated much more than the initial required quota of 37 votes. The BJP allocated only 38 votes to its candidates, which was just one extra vote to protect its candidates in case of any possible error by its candidate. The SP’s move indicates either the party was overprotective for its first two candidates, or it apprehended much more cross-voting from its ranks,” said at least two persons aware of the development.
{{/usCountry}}“This was our strategic move. We could see that our third candidate may not win following the move of seven SP MLAs to cross vote. So, we decided to allocate more votes to the first two candidates,” said SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary.
An officer closely associated with the Rajya Sabha election said Ranjan would have been closer to BJP’s Sanjay Seth, if the SP had not taken extra protection or had not wasted its surplus votes.
“Alok Ranjan got 1,900 (19) first preference votes. BJP’s Sanjay Seth at the same time got 2,900 (29) first preference votes. After counting of second preference votes, Ranjan’s count went up to 2,500 while Seth got vote value of 3,764 against the required number of 3,582. Besides cross-voting by seven SP MLAs in favour of BJP, one SP member (Maharaji Devi Prajapati) stayed away, and vote of another SP MLA Shajil Islam was declared invalid. If this could have been taken care of, the SP candidate could have got closer to Sanjay Seth, the BJP’s eighth candidate,” said an official.