10 Candidates for 10 Seats: BJP and SP Set to Win UP Rajya Sabha Polls Unopposed as Akhilesh Yadav Steps Back

The suspense surrounding a contentious floor fight in Uttar Pradesh’s biennial Rajya Sabha elections ended on the final day of nominations as Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav confirmed his party will not field a third nominee. Declaring that the party’s sights are firmly trained on the 403 seats of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly ahead of the 2027 polls, Yadav’s strategic withdrawal avoids a high-stakes cross-voting contest and clears the deck for all 10 candidates—eight from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and two from the Samajwadi Party—to walk away with uncontested victories.

Assembly Floor Math Preempts High-Risk Contest

The decision to bypass a third nomination is grounded in strict legislative arithmetic. In the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly, where the effective strength stands at 396 voting legislators following vacancies, securing a single Rajya Sabha seat requires a baseline quota of approximately 36 to 37 first-preference votes. The SP-Congress combine commands 103 seats (101 SP, 2 Congress), giving the opposition enough numerical strength to easily elect two candidates with surplus votes left over. However, forcing a win on a third seat would have required at least 8 to 10 additional cross-votes or external support, which carried significant risk against the ruling NDA’s commanding strength of 288 legislators.

All 10 Candidates Set for Uncontested Wins

With exactly 10 candidates submitting nomination papers for the 10 vacant seats, the Election Commission will formalize their election following scrutiny and the deadline for withdrawal of candidatures:

• Samajwadi Party (2 Nominees): Senior party ideologue and sitting parliamentarian Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav, alongside industrial executive Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani.

• Bharatiya Janata Party (8 Nominees): A slate balancing regional and social engineering, featuring UP Cabinet Minister Dharampal Singh, Shruti Gangwar, Prakash Pal, Vidya Sagar Sonkar, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Radhakant Ojha, Gopi Krishna Pandey, and Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan.

Shifting Focus to the 2027 Legislative Battle

By publicly stating, “Now, our focus is not on three, but on 403,” Akhilesh Yadav aimed to position the tactical retreat as an intentional pivot toward grassroots consolidation rather than an electoral defeat. While the BJP camp quickly characterized the move as a sign of organizational vulnerability and an inability to prevent internal fractures, SP leadership underscored that avoiding backroom horse-trading keeps the opposition’s legislative bloc intact as they build organizational momentum across eastern and central Uttar Pradesh for the 2027 state elections.