Uttar Pradesh MLCs’ nomination: Yogi Adityanath government may spring surprises | Lucknow…

LUCKNOW: The Yogi government may spring a few surprises in the list of MLCs who are to be nominated to the UP legislative council soon.
Sources said the government was considering the name of a son of a retired bureaucrat considered close to PM Narendra Modi and is also associated with a key religious project in UP.
BJP sources said the bureaucrat’s son is an economist-turned- IPS officer-turned social worker who had also sought a ticket from Shravasti seat in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But the party had instead fielded former MP Daddan Mishra, who lost to SP-backed BSP candidate Ram Shiromani Verma. Sources said he had also sought a ticket from a seat in east UP in the 2022 Assembly elections.
The other name doing the rounds is of an academic linked to an organisation which is considered a BJP think tank. This candidate was one of the election managers of PM Modi in Varanasi in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He was also part of the BJP’s campaign in Tripura Assembly election.
A senior BJP leader told TOI that the list of probable candidates who could be nominated to the legislative council has been sent to BJP central leadership for approval. Six MLC seats in the nomination category have been lying vacant since April-May last year. The candidates will be formally nominated by Governor Anandiben Patel after a nod from the state cabinet headed by the CM.
Sources said BJP plans to reward persons from academic and cultural background by sending them to the upper house of the UP Assembly. “The party leadership will soon take a final decision,” a senior BJP leader said.
Among the host of party organisational functionaries who may be accommodated in the list include some regional presidents of the BJP. Kashi regional president Mahesh Chandra Srivastava and Kanpur-Bundelkhand president Manvendra Singh are learnt to be the front runners. Braj region president Rajnikant Maheshwari too is learnt to be in the contention, sources said.