Samajwadi Party leader Manoj Kumar Pandey steps down as Chief Whip as voting underway for Rajya Sabha polls

Samajwadi Party MLA and leader Manoj Kumar Pandey on Tuesday resigned from the post of party's Chief Whip  in Uttar Pradesh Assembly amid Rajya Sabha polls voting.

His resignations from the post has comejust a day after eight MLAs of the Samajwadi Party skipped a meeting called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Voting is underway for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh today with eight BJP candidates and three from the Samajwadi Party in the fray.

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The ruling BJP and the principal opposition SP have the numbers to send seven and three members respectively unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, but with the BJP fielding its eighth candidate, a keen contest is on the cards in one of the seats.

The results will be announced by the end of the day.

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The seven other candidates fielded by the BJP are 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 and former Agra mayor Naveen Jain.

The Samajwadi Party has fielded actor-MP Jaya Bachchan, retired IAS officer Alok Ranjan, and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman.

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

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The voting will end at 4 pm and counting will commence from 5 pm.

The BJP and the SP are the two largest parties in the 403-member state assembly with 252 MLAs and 108 MLAs respectively. The Congress, an alliance partner of the SP, has two seats.

BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) has 13 seats, the NISHAD Party has six seats, RLD has nine seats, SBSP six, Jansatta Dal Loktantrik two and the BSP has one seat. Four seats are currently vacant.