BSP candidates file nominations for Council elections

BSP candidates, including party supremo Mayawati's confidant Naseemuddin Siddiqui, today filed nominations for the election to the 12 seats of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council to be held on January 23.
Besides Siddiqui, Dharmveer Singh Ashok and Pradeep of the BSP filed their nominations today before the Principal Secretary Legislative Assembly (or Vidhan Sabha) and Returning Officer Pradeep Dubey.
Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had on January 4 declared candidates for the biennial election to Legislative Council (or Vidhan Parishad), the upper house of the bicameral legislature.
SP had announced state Health Minister Ahmad Hasan, Ramesh Yadav, Ramjatan Rajbhar, Sahab Singh Saini, Ashok Bajpai, Virendra Singh Gurjar, Sarojini Agarwal and Ashu Mallik as party candidates.

Twelve members -- seven from BSP, three from ruling SP and two from the BJP-- are retiring on January 30, which include both the Leader of the Upper House Ahmad Hasan and Leader of the Opposition Naseemuddin Siddiqui.
Others who will be retiring include Ramesh Yadav and Dr Sarojni Agarwal (SP), Ashok Kumar Sidharth, Dr Om Prakash Bharti, Pratap Singh Baghel, Mahesh Arya and Lokesh Prajapati (all BSP), and Baburam M.Com and Vinod Pandey (both BJP).

As per the strength of 403 members of the state Assembly, around 33 members will be electing one MLC each and since the ruling Samajwadi Party has 230 members, it will be the major gainer expecting to win at least seven members.

With 80 MLAs, the BSP can manage to win three seats comfortably although it will have a surplus of 14 votes, BJP with 41 members will be able to get one seat while one seat is likely to go to Congress-Rashtirya Lok Dal (RLD) combine
Congress has 28 members and RLD has eight.
The party wise strength in UP assembly is SP 230 members, BSP 80 members, BJP 41 members, Congress 28 members, RLD 8 members, Peace party four members, Quami Ekta Dal two and Nationalist Congress Party, Etehad-e-Millat Council and Trinamool Congress one each and Independent six.