Divided UP House may see consensus

The favouring of a consensus is a pointer to just how finely balanced the power structure is in Lucknow. A contest could prove Mayawati’s majority support but could expose her lack of it.

Indeed, the additional seat has become a sort of hot potato neither the BJP nor the BSP wishes to touch. The BJP’s reluctance to field its own candidate comes despite Mayawati’s statement here today that it was a BJP seat and the BSP would extend support to any candidate fielded by it.

Yesterday, BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley, while announcing the names of candidates, said: ‘‘You will hear from us shortly.’’ Nothing, though, came of it even today.

With just a day left for filing of nomination papers, there is very little possibility of an 11th candidate jumping in to the fray for the 10 seats due for biennial elections. The Samajwadi Party, BSP, BJP and Congress have announced the names of precisely 10 nominees for these seats. Unless there is a last-minute spanner in the works, they would all get elected without any contest.

All of them, except BJP general secretary Rajnath Singh, have already filed their nomination papers. Singh is scheduled to do so tomorrow. Another BJP general secretary, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, filed his papers today.

Four Samajwadi Party nominees — Amar Singh, Shahid Siddique, Uday Pratap Singh and Abu Asim Azmi — and three BSP candidates — Gandhi Azad, Isham Singh and Bir Singh — went through this exercise yesterday. Congress candidate Akhilesh Das was the first to do so.

The suspense would get over tomorrow, the deadline for nominations.