Two BJP candidates are set to enter the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council as Samajwadi Party’s Kriti Kaul’s nomination papers were rejected on Tuesday on grounds of age. The two seats for which the by-elections are due fell vacant after the death of Samajwadi Party’s Ahmed Hasan and the resignation of BJP’s Thakur Javir Singh, who won the recent assembly elections.
Election Officer Brij Bhushan Dubey told PTI that during scrutiny, the SP candidate’s nomination papers were found to be invalid and rejected as he is 28 years old and 30 years old to enter the House. Does not meet the minimum age criteria. He further said that the candidate has mentioned his age as 28 years in his affidavit and election ID card, which does not meet the minimum age criteria.
After the promotion, Dharmendra Singh Senthawar and Nirmala Paswan, who filed their nomination papers as BJP candidates on Monday, are slated to enter the upper house of the state legislature. On Saturday, the BJP announced its Gorakhpur regional president Senthwar and its Kashi regional vice-president Paswan as the party’s official candidates.
Dubey said that both the BJP candidates will be declared elected on August 4. Kole, who was the SP candidate from the Chanbe seat in Mirzapur constituency during the assembly elections and represents the tribal community.
The 100-member council has 73 BJP members, nine from the SP, four independents, two from the teachers’ group, and one each from Apna Dal (S), Nishad Party and Jansatha Dal. Eight seats are vacant in the council.
In the assembly of 403 MLAs, the BJP and its allies have a majority with 273 members as the Saffron Party has 255, Apna Dal (S) 12 and Nishad Party six. SP has 111 members and its ally RLD has eight. SBSP has six members, Janata Dal and Congress have two each and BSP has one.
BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma claimed that the SP knew that Kaul’s nomination would be rejected, but she went ahead anyway because she wanted to show her concern for the tribal community. Sharma claimed that the SP did not support the NDA’s presidential candidate Dopadi Murmu, a tribal, and to compensate, he nominated Kaul. Meanwhile, SP spokesperson Anurag Bhadoria said he was not aware of the rejection of Kaul’s nomination and would see what actually happened before commenting.
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