Parties draw up fresh strategy for UP council polls

Fresh calculations are back on the drawing board of Uttar Pradesh politics as the dominant players of the ruling BJP and opposition SP and BSP draw up new strategies for the upcoming state legislative council election.

The election to 13 seats of the legislative council will be held on April 26. Counting of votes will take place on the same day.

After securing a thumping win in the recently-concluded biennial Rajya Sabha elections from the state by bagging nine out of 10 seats that went to polls, the BJP is confident to secure at least 11 Council seats going by its brute strength in the Assembly along with it allies.

In the 100-member UP Legislative Council, the BJP has just 13 members. The Samajwadi Party has 61 members, the BSP nine, the Congress two, the RLD one and others 12. Two seats are vacant.

UP BJP vice-president J P S Rathore said to ensure victory, a candidate needs 29 first preference votes.

Arithmetically, the BJP and its allies are likely to win 11 out of 13 seats comfortably and still be left with five additional votes, he said.

Exuding confidence on the ruling party increasing its tally in the Upper House, UP BJP spokesperson Alok Awasthi said, "Our party will register a thumping win in the legislative council polls."
UP Congress spokesperson Ashok Singh said, "Going purely by numbers, we cannot field any party candidate (for the Council polls), but we can support the candidates from other like-minded parties. However, we expect the BSP to support our candidate (if we decide to field one), since we supported the BSP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections."