EC ends BJP’s dilemma in UP, to hold 5 by-elections

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s dilemma on whom to drop from among the four Uttar Pradesh ministers, who are not members of the Assembly or Legislative Council, ended with the Election Commission deciding to hold five by-elections of the Legislative Council on September 15 instead of four.

The EC’s decision to hold a by-election on a seat vacated by the resignation of the BSP’s Thakur Jaiveer Singh helps the BJP to get elected chief minister Yogi Aditya Nath and four other ministers to the Legislative Council ahead of the 6-month deadline of September 19 to continue in the Cabinet.

The BJP too lost no time in declaring its candidates for the by-elections: Yogi, deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dr Dinesh Sharma and ministers of state Mohsin Raza and Swatantra Dev Singh. The Central Election Committee’’s decision comes a day after acceptance if the nominations started and which will go on till September 5.

Since the Council members are to be elected in these by-elections by the MLAs, the BJP has absolute majority to get elected each one of them without any difficulty. One of them, however, will have less than one year’’s term only up to May 5 next year since Jaiveer, against whose vacancy the by-poll was announced, had already completed five years out of the 6-year tenure.

Earlier last week, the EC said there were six clear vacancies in the Legislative Council but it was not holding by-elections for two because the term of the MLCs who resigned was less than a year.

No explanation came forth from the EC on declaring a by-election against the vacancy caused by resignation of Jaiveer Singh who quit BSP to join BJP on July 29 but not in case of another vacancy caused by Samajwadi Party MLC Ambika Chaudhary’’s resignation in January to join the BSP. Incidentally, the tenure of both would have ended on May 5, 2018.