Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav was closeted for three hours at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday with former lieutenant Amar Singh – who was forced to leave the party in 2010 – amidst speculation that the SP may help him get a Rajya Sabha berth in the upcoming biennial polls for 10 seats to the Upper House.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, too, was present at the meeting – he later flew back to Lucknow.
In the wake of the last assembly elections in UP in 2012, the SP, that had only one of the 10 RS seats going to the polls, will increase its tally to six; the Bahujan Samaj Party’s share will shrink from six to two; the BJP will remain static at one. The Congress and the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal – both still partners in the United Progressive Alliance -- together could get one RS seat.
Even as Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav is keen to help Mr. Amar Singh get a berth in the Upper House, party sources said senior party colleagues, including cousin Ram Gopal Yadav, Mohammad Azam Khan and Reoti Raman Singh, are opposing the move. Indeed, the name of former Prime Minister Chandrashkehar’s son, Neeraj Shekhar – a Rajput like Mr. Amar Singh – is being taken as a worthier candidate. It is possible, therefore, that the SP may back him as an independent: indeed, currently, Mr. Amar Singh is an independent RS MP whose tenure ends, like the others, on November 25.
Meanwhile, though talks are yet to be held, RLD chief Ajit Singh, who lost his Lok Sabha seat in the general elections earlier this year, is also hoping to persuade the Congress to support his candidature. But a senior Congress functionary said that since the party’s numbers have been severely depleted in the Lok Sabha, it would like to win every possible seat in the Rajya Sabha. He added that though the names of senior Congress leaders, who lost their seats in the recent Parliament elections, were in circulation for RS seats, the party is now looking for new names: “It will be someone from the younger generation, someone, for instance, like MV Rajeev Gowda who became a RS MP in July this year from Karnataka,” he stressed.
But clearly, if the Congress that has 28 MLAs, does not oblige Mr. Ajit Singh, even the RLD might quit the UPA and form a partnership with the SP, that is now looking to re-build its strength after the knock it took in the Lok Sabha polls, and consolidate the gains it made in recent assembly by-polls. A SP-RLD partnership in western UP might help both parties regain their strength in the region. For the SP, party sources said, it is a gamble worth taking especially as it has six RS seats to play with.
Other likely SP RS candidates include Mr Ramgopal Yadav, whose term in the Upper House ends later next month, former State Minister Ashok Bajpai, ex-Lok Sabha MP Ravi Prakash Verma and, possibly, one Muslim leader.
