Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his two deputies Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma and two other ministers—Swatantra Dev Singh and Mohsin Raza—will contest legislative council polls to become legislators in Uttar Pradesh. The CM and his ministerial colleagues are required to have the membership of either upper or the lower house of UP legislature to continue in their posts.
Their victories are certain as the BJP has enough numbers in the state assembly. Of these five ministers, the CM and Maurya have faced direct polls—Adityanath has been a five-term MP from Gorakhpur while Maurya won from Phulpur Lok Sabha constituency.
Maurya has contested assembly polls as well in 2002, 2007 and 2012. Sharma has been the mayor of Lucknow, but has not faced other high profile polls. Raza, the only Muslim minister in the UP cabinet, and Singh, who has been an RSS pracharak, have not faced any direct polls.
A BJP leader said victory of these leaders are certain and asked why waste time, energy and money for the elections.
The party wants all its leaders to win the polls, hence it has opted for the upper house route. Although party is sure of chief minister and Maurya winning any elections, the BJP is tad apprehensive about Raza and Singh and hence did not want to take the risk of fielding them for assembly elections. Besides, the state had chief ministers who took the legislative council route in the form of Akhileh Yadav and Mayawati. Political heavyweights like N.D. Tiwari and former prime minister V.P. Singh too had opted for upper house polls.
However, the decision of Adityanath and his ministers to opt for legislative council polls has attracted criticism with former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav claiming these leaders lack courage to face direct elections.
The last day for filing nominations for the polls is Tuesday and the scrutiny will take place on Wednesday. The last day for withdrawal is September 8 and the elections will be held on September 15. The results will be declared on the day of the poll itself.
