Lucknow: The suspense over who would grab the ninth Rajya Sabha seat continued for nearly six hours on Friday with neck-and-neck fight between BJP and BSP. While BJP was said to get eight seats comfortably and SP one, the game was all about the ninth seat.
A few days before the day of voting, major parties in Uttar Pradesh were engrossed in drawing strategy for the crucial Rajya Sabha seat. From Samajwadi Party’s dinner diplomacy to Mayawati asking SP to give a list of members supporting the BSP candidate to CM Yogi’s meeting, the political circles were abuzz with number game.
The reason for such intense planning was the fear of cross voting, which ultimately changed the game on Friday. Every person influential in UP politics was important for the parties, be it Raja Bhaiyya, Om Prakash Rajbhar or Amanmani Tripathi.
But on the D-day, it was BJP that clinched the extra ninth seat amid high drama, overcoming the new-found bonhomie between former arch rivals SP and BSP.
Here’s a blow-by-blow account of what ensued during Rajya Sabha voting on Friday:
The voting for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats from UP began at Tilk Hall of the UP Assembly at 9am.
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav was the first one to cast his vote at 9:18am.
Shivpal was soon followed by group of seven Congress MLAs who voted together at 9:33am.
At around 9:46 am 17 MLAs of Bahujan Samaj Party casted their vote
It was around 10:22 am when first cross voting was reported by BSP MLA Anil Singh who voted along with Nishad Party MLA Vijay Mishra.
As the voting for Rajya Sabha was underway, a tweet emerged from Kunda MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya at 10:40am, in which he made it clear that he will be supporting and voting for Samajwadi Party and not Bahujan Samaj Party.
At around 10:55 BSP MLA Anil Singh came out and said that he has voted as per the will be “Maharaj” Ji, making it clear that he has cross voted in favour of BJP.
The son of former SP leader Naresh Agarwal, Nitin Agarwal who was expected to vote for BJP and stated that his family was humiliated enough by the Samajwadi Party and that he will be voting for BJP.
Around 12:45pm Samajwadi Party Chief and Ex CM of UP Akhilesh Yadav tweets a picture of himself along with Raja Bhaiyya and says thanks to Raja Bhaiyya for his support in Rajya Sabha elections. Soon after, at around 12:55 pm, senior SP leader Azam Khan arrives to cast his vote.
The much awaited MLA of the day, Raja Bhaiyya arrives at UP Assembly at around 2:32pm to cast his vote, but, to much surprise after casting his vote Raja Bhaiyya goes directly to meet CM Yogi Adityanath at around 2:56 pm. Post this Raja Bhaiyya also meets Hriday Narayan Dikshit and finally with all the 400 MLAs casting their vote, the polling ends at around 3:05 pm, an hour before the scheduled time of 4pm.
The counting which was scheduled to begin at 5 pm, is delayed as both Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party lodge with Election Commission of India against Nitin Agarwal and Anil Singh for not showing their votes to the appointed observers.
The ECI immediately comes into action and CCTV footage was examined to ascertain facts. Finally, at around 7:30pm the counting starts after ECI gives clearance and states that nothing objectionable was found with the votes.
The first result, however, comes around 9:45 declaring the win of Jaya Bachchan followed by news of winning of eight candidates of BJP. The most important ninth candidate of BJP, Anil Agarwal, is also declared winner around 10:00 pm and the celebrations begin at the Bhartiya Janta Party. CM Yogi Adityanath addresses media around 11pm with the winning candidates.
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