BJP fields ex-babu in UP MLC polls
Speculation rife over Cabinet berth
Former IAS officer Arvind Kumar Sharma, who took a voluntary retirement last week and is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been named by the BJP as one of its candidates for the upcoming legislative council elections in Uttar Pradesh. Mr Sharma had joined the BJP on Thursday. Speculation has been rife that the former bureaucrat will get a key position in Yogi Adityanath led UP government. Polling for 12 legislative council seats in Uttar Pradesh will be held on January 28.
A Gujarat cadre officer hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Mr Sharma had long been one of the trusted bureaucrats of Mr Modi since his tenure as the Gujarat chief minister. He also served in key positions in the PMO after Mr Modi became PM in 2014.
Besides Mr Sharma, the BJP also named deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, its state president Swatantra Dev Singh and Lakshman Prasad Acharya as its candidates for the polls. The present terms of Dinesh Sharma, Mr Singh and Mr Acharya in the state upper house come to an end on January 30. Only the former IAS officer is the new face in the party’s first list of candidates that was released on Friday.
Polling for 12 legislative council seats in Uttar Pradesh will be held on January 28 and the ruling party can win 10 seats going by its brute majority in the 403-member Assembly.
In the 100-member UP legislative council, currently the SP has 55 MLCs, BJP has 25 MLCs, BSP has eight MLCs, Congress and ‘Nirdaliye Samooh’ have two MLCs each and Apna Dal (S) and ‘Shikshak Dal’ have one MLC each.
There are three independent MLCs and three seats are vacant.