SP’s Manoj Kumar Pandey resigns as chief whip amid UP Rajya Sabha polls voting

Samajwadi Party MLA and leader Manoj Kumar Pandey on Tuesday resigned from the post of party chief whip amid the voting for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. This comes a day after he skipped the meeting called by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on the Rajya Sabha elections.
“You had appointed me as chief whip of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh Assembly. I am resigning as the chief whip. Kindly accept my resignation,” Pandey wrote in a letter to Yadav.
Manoj Kumar Pandey is an MLA from the Unchahar constituency in Raebareli. He was a cabinet minister in the previous Akhilesh Yadav government.
On Monday, Pandey, along with seven other MLAs – Mukesh Verma, Maharaji Prajapati, Pooja Pal, Rakesh Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi, Rakesh Pratap Singh, and Abhay Singh did not attend the meeting called by Akhilesh Yadav in view of the Rajya Sabha elections, sparking fears of cross-voting among the SP leaders.
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Voting is currently underway for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, along with four in Karnataka, and one in Himachal Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh is witnessing a high-pitched electoral battle between the BJP and SP.
While the BJP has fielded eight candidates, the SP has fielded three candidates. In order to be elected to the Rajya Sabha from UP, a candidate would need nearly 37 first-preference votes. Currently, BJP has 252 MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly, while SP has 108 MLAs along with Congress’ two seats. BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) has 13 seats, NISHAD Party has six seats, RLD has nine seats, SBSP has six seats, Jansatta Dal Loktantrik has two seats, and BSP has one seat.
For the three SP candidates to win, they would need the support of 111 MLAs in the assembly. However, the Akhilesh Yadav-led party is fearing that the BJP has put pressure on its MLAs to cross-vote.