The UP polls in February are all set to cast a shadow over the Rajya Sabha biennial elections to 10 seats, scheduled to be held in March.
Elections to the state Assembly will be in February and counting of votes will be held on March 4. The constitution of the Assembly may take another week and if — as is being predicted — the polls fail to throw up a clear mandate and a hung Assembly comes into existence, government formation may be further delayed.
However, the RS polls in March will be held with the new Assembly that will be constituted after the polls and this could upset the calculations of all major political parties in the state, particularly the BSP.
Of the 10 RS seats falling vacant on April 2 next year, five are held by the BSP and if the Assembly elections were to be held in April, the Rajya Sabha polls will have been held in the existing Assembly in which the BSP has 219 members and the party could have easily sent six of its members to the Rajya Sabha in place of the five retiring members.
In the present scenario, the BSP may emerge as a loser in the Rajya Sabha if it does not return with a majority in the state Assembly.
The BSP members in the Rajya Sabha retiring next year are Pramod Kureel, Munqad Ali, Jai Prakash, Ganga Charan Rajput, and Naresh Agarwal.
The Samajwadi Party, meanwhile, has two members retiring next year Mahendra Mohan Gupta and Veerpal Singh Yadav. The party hopes to improve its strength in the state Assembly after the polls and consequently may gain in the Rajya Sabha elections too.
Mr Kalraj Misra and Mr Vinay Katiyar of the BJP are retiring from the Upper House, and while Mr Kalraj Misra plans to get elected to the UP Assembly, Vinay Katiyar will seek renomination for the Upper House. Ms Uma Bharti could also be a claimant if she does not contest and win the Assembly polls.
The RLD has one member retiring from the Rajya Sabha in April next year and the party is confident of improving its tally in the UP polls and then find its way back into the Rajya Sabha too with assistance from the Congress.
The Congress, meanwhile, could emerge as the biggest gainer in Rajya Sabha if it performs well in the UP polls and after a gap of several years, the party may finally get the opportunity of sending members to the Upper House on its own strength. Incidentally, the polls to the UP Legislative Council are also scheduled to be held immediately after the Assembly polls with 13 members from the state’s Upper House retiring on May 5.