The Samajwadi Party’s decision not to field a third candidate in the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Sabha elections is being viewed by political observers as a strategic call aimed at preventing internal rifts and avoiding potential humiliation ahead of the Assembly elections.
Analysts suggest the move is designed to shield the party from the embarrassment of cross-voting. Read | Why Congress Is Turning To Smaller Parties Ahead Of UP Polls The Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh have taken an intriguing turn, with political arithmetic colliding with the realities of cross-voting and last-minute manoeuvres. The Samajwadi Party nominated two candidates and was reportedly in the final stages of deciding on a third candidate. But after the final day of filing nominations, i.e.
Had the SP put up a third nominee, any shift in loyalty by its legislators towards the NDA could have been publicly exposed the party rift, dealing a blow to cadre morale and projecting weakness within the party ranks and, most importantly, putting it on the back foot in seat-sharing negotiations with its ally, the Congress, for the 2027 UP Assembly election. With 12 candidates contesting 10 seats, an election would be unavoidable. October 6, the BJP fielded 8 candidates and the SP put up only 2.
The BJP procured a 9th nomination form, signalling aggressive intent, according to an NDTV report.
If the 1st preference votes do not fill all the seats, the surplus votes of those already elected are transferred to the second preference candidates of MLAs whose first preferences have already won. However, the system followed is of a single transferable vote. So, MLAs who vote in an open ballot in Rajya Sabha polls mark their first, second, third, etc preferences, depending on number of candidates. This process goes on until all the seats are filled up.
However, two Muslim MLAs of the SBSP and two of the RLD are expected to either vote against the NDA or abstain, bringing the effective tally down to around 293. SP and Congress together account for 103 members. One MLA, Ramakant Yadav, is in jail and may not be able to vote, reducing the strength to 102. Four SP MLAs (Pooja Pal, Rakesh Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi and Ashutosh Maurya) are widely expected to support the NDA, further lowering the alliance’s reliable votes to 98. Conversely, the four Muslim MLAs from SBSP and RLD could back the SP, restoring its effective strength to around 102.
