New Delhi: Going through its worst phase, the Indian National Congress has suffered another major setback as for the first time the country’s oldest political organization will have no member in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council.
Deepak Singh, the lone member of Congress in the UP Legislative Council, retired on Wednesday.
In the last UP assembly elections, the Congress was reduced to just two seats.
Not only the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party will now have only one member in both the houses of the UP Legislative Assembly as its three members in the council completed their term on Wednesday.
A total of 10 members retired from the UP Legislative Council on Wednesday, including Jagjivan Prasad, Balram Yadav, Dr Kamlesh Kumar Pathak, Ranvijay Singh, Ramsunder Nishad and Shatrughan Prakash of the Samajwadi Party (SP). Apart from this, the term of BSP MLC Atar Singh Rao, Suresh Kumar Kashyap and Dinesh Chandra also ended on Wednesday.
The tenure of two MLCs of the Bharatiya Janata Party also ended on Wednesday. However, these two BJP members have been re-elected to the council. The two members are Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and Panchayati Raj Minister Chaudhary Bhupendra Singh.
On January 5, 1887, the Legislative Council was formed in Uttar Pradesh, then the United Provinces, and its first meeting was held on January 8, 1887 at the Thornhill Memorial Hall in Allahabad. Then it used to have nine members. Under the provisions made in 1909, the number of members was increased to 46, which included 26 non-official members. Of these, 20 members were elected and six were nominated. Motilal Nehru took the membership of the Legislative Council on February 7, 1909. He is considered the first member of Congress in the Legislative Council. However, he resigned in 1920 under the policy of non-cooperation with the Congress government. UP was then known as United Provinces.
After independence, the Leader of the House in the Legislative Council was from the Congress until 1989, except in 1977 and 1979 when the post was held by the Janata Party.
In the last 33 years, the strength of the Congress in the UP assembly is decreasing. In the assembly elections held this time, the Congress has reached the lowest rank in terms of the number of members. Only two Congress MLAs won and got less than 2.5 per cent votes. This was bound to have an impact on its membership in the UP Legislative Council.
In view of the current situation, the hope of representation of Congress in the Upper House of the UP Legislature is far-fetched.
