Adityanath 3rd consecutive UP CM seeking back door entry to legislature

Owing to the brute majority BJP enjoys in the UP Vidhan Sabha, its candidates are assured victory

Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is on course to become the third successive chief minister of the state to become a member of the Upper House (Vidhan Parishad) for retaining the high post as opposed to contesting direct polls for a Lower House (Vidhan Sabha) berth.

His two immediate predecessors, Mayawati (2007-12) and Akhilesh Yadav (2012-17), had pursued the same route by resigning from their respective Parliament seats and becoming Members of Legislative Council (MLCs).

UP is one of the few Indian states that have a bicameral legislature comprising two houses — the Vidhan Sabha and Vidhan Parishad. While Vidhan Sabha seats are filled by direct state polls, the Vidhan Parishad seats get filled by direct elections. A Vidhan Parishad member has a six-year term.

When Adityanath, the sitting Gorakhpur Member of Parliament (MP), was sworn in as the 21st chief minister of the state, he also became the fourth successive leader to don the mantle while still not being a member of either House of the UP legislature.

None of his three immediate predecessors – Mulayam Singh Yadav (2003-07), Mayawati, and Akhilesh Yadav – were UP legislators when they had taken the oath of the chief minister’s office.

Samajwadi Party’s (SP's) erstwhile president, Mulayam Singh Yadav, had become the chief minister on August 29, 2003, when he was the Lok Sabha member from the Sambhal parliamentary constituency. It was his third term as chief minister.

Since the law stipulated that he needed to become a member of the UP legislature within six months of getting elevated to the post, Mulayam later contested a UP Assembly by-election from Gunnaur in January 2004 and secured over 90 per cent of the votes polled.

In the 15th UP Assembly, Mayawati took over as the chief minister on May 13, 2007, when she was an MP from the Akbarpur (reserved) constituency. Later, she got elected to the UP Upper House.

In the 16th Assembly (2012-2017), when Mulayam’s elder son Akhilesh led the SP to victory in the UP election, he was an MP from the Kannauj constituency, which was earlier held by Mulayam himself.

After taking over as the 20th UP chief minister on March 15, 2012, he followed in the steps of Mayawati and became a member of the Vidhan Parishad. The Kannauj seat he vacated was later contested by his wife Dimple, who won the seat.

Meanwhile, Adityanath would also become the seventh leader to officiate as chief minister while being an MLC. Earlier, Chandrabhanu Gupta, Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta, apart from Mayawati and Akhilesh, had been the state's chief minister and members of the Vidhan Parishad.

Meanwhile, the UP Vidhan Parishad poll process has already started and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced the candidature of five of its ministers, including Adityanath, to contest and enter the Upper House.

Apart from Adityanath, his two deputies Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Prasad Maurya and two other ministers (Swatantra Dev Singh and Mohsin Raza) are not members of the state legislature. They have time until September 18 to become a member of the state legislature.

While Maurya represents the Phoolpur (Allahabad) constituency, the remaining three are not members of any House. Sharma was the mayor of Lucknow. 

Over the past one month, six UP MLCs have resigned from their seats, including Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLC Thakur Jaivir Singh and five SP members — Bukkal Nawab, Yashwant Singh, Sarojini Agarwal, Ashok Bajpai, and Ambika Chaudhary.

Except for Chaudhary, all these SP and BSP members have already joined the ruling BJP. Although Chaudhary had joined BSP before the 2017 UP poll, his Vidhan Parishad membership had continued under SP affiliation.

The Vidhan Parishad poll nominations could be filed by September 5. The scrutiny of papers would take place on the following day, while nominations could be withdrawn till September 8. 

Polling would take place on September 15, while the counting of votes and announcement of results would take place the same evening. The BJP enjoys a brute majority in the Vidhan Sabha, 325 out of total 403 seats, and the victory of its candidates is a foregone conclusion.