Lucknow: A cryptic social media post from SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday morning brought the curtains down on Rajya Sabha polls in UP, paving the way for all candidates in the fray being elected unopposed. The post hinted that SP was not inclined to field a third candidate and it didn’t when the deadline for filing of nominations ended on Tuesday evening.
Responding to a media query about his post on eyeing 403 seats and not 3, Akhilesh said he decided (not to field the third candidate) to let BJP have a good night’s sleep. Sources in SP said the party would have managed to sail through comfortably with the third candidate too as more than 15 MLA from the treasury benches were in touch with Akhilesh Yadav and were willing to cross vote. Akhilesh’s Tuesday morning post came a day after the party leadership deputed its Lucknow Central MLA Ravidas Mehrotra to secure the signature of 10 MLAs as proposers for the third candidate.
Akhilesh took to X at exactly 9:39am to announce: “ Ab humari nigah teen par nahi, char sao teen par hai (Now we are not looking at 3 but at 403),” Akhilesh wrote indicating that the party no longer wanted to field the third candidate for Rajya Sabha polls and instead focus on 403 Assembly seats in 2027 UP polls. He said the fact was BJP allies were running away from the NDA . The party leadership was unwilling to deny tickets to its own aspirants and field turncoats instead for the sake of a Rajya Sabha seat,” said a senior SP functionary associated with party’s strategic decisions.
Interestingly, Akhilesh’s post on X came as he left for Delhi to particpate in the INDIA bloc protest led by the Congress party against CEC Gyanesh Kumar. “The problem was that almost all of them wanted a ticket for UP Assembly polls in return but the party was not in a position to offer them anything else as a return gift. Talking to the media on Monday, Ravidas had said the name of the third candidate would be formally announced on Tuesday.