Significantly, by-elections are being held on two vacant seats of the State Legislative Council. In the two seats where by-elections are to be held, the term of the first seat is till January 30, 2027, which fell vacant due to the death of senior SP leader Ahmed Hassan. The second seat’s tenure is till May 5, 2024, it has fallen vacant due to the resignation of BJP’s Jaiveer Singh. The notification for both the seats was released separately.
According to the rules, these were to be decided by a simple majority. Polling for both these seats is to be held on August 11. To win an MLC seat, a vote of at least 200 MLAs is required. In this sense, the victory of the BJP in both the seats was already looking certain. Even after this, Akhilesh Yadav has tried to thwart the one-sided victory of BJP candidates by fielding Kirti Kol, who comes from the tribal community. However, with the cancellation of the nomination itself, all this bet failed.
The SP was defeated in the assembly elections held in March this year. In the by-elections in Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) snatched both these seats from the SP. Even in the Legislative Council and Rajya Sabha elections, Akhilesh was seen laying down his arms without fighting. Then in the presidential election, some SP MLAs from the politics of CM Yogi voted in favor of Draupadi Murmu. Not only this, parties like Mahan Dal, SubhaSP and PSP, who were allies of SP in these 6 months, broke ties with Akhilesh.
After eating these six political setbacks, Akhilesh should now focus on strengthening the SP. By not doing so, he chose the path of his seventh defeat by taking Kirti Kol of the tribal community into the electoral battle, despite not having the numbers in the Legislative Council elections. This decision of Akhilesh will neither increase the SP’s base in the tribal community nor will it remove the anti-tribalism that SP had on the party during the presidential election.
Source: navbharattimes.indiatimes.com
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