India News | SP Candidate Alok Ranjan Concedes Defeat in Rajya Sabha Election in UP

Lucknow, Feb 27 (PTI) Samajwadi Party candidate Alok Ranjan conceded defeat in the Rajya Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh Tuesday night. His defeat suggests cross-voting by some party legislators.

There was a keen contest on one of the 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh after the BJP fielded eight candidates and the Samajwadi Party three.

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Asked if he got 19 votes, Ranjan, a former chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh, told PTI, "Yes, this is what I am seeing on news channels." Citing news reports, he said that two other SP candidates Jaya Bachhan and Ramji Lal Suman got 41 and 40 votes respectively.

Asked whether he had conceded defeat, Ranjan told PTI, "Yes. Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to the national president of the Samajwadi Party (Akhilesh Yadav) who nominated me and the SP voters who had voted for me."

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Amid concerns over cross-voting and SP chief whip Manoj Pandey quitting while polling was underway, Akhilesh Yadav warned action would be taken against such MLAs.

The ruling BJP and the principal opposition SP had the numbers to send seven and three members respectively unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, but the BJP fielded an eighth candidate, which made the contest interesting.

To get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, a candidate needed nearly 37 first-preference votes.

The BJP fielded former Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, general secretary of the party's Uttar Pradesh unit Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant (Bind), party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh, former Agra mayor Naveen Jain, and industrialist Sanjay Seth.

Seth, a former SP leader, joined the BJP in 2019.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)