The polling for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh ended at 4 pm here on Tuesday amid reports of cross-voting in the Opposition Samajwadi Party and the Om Prakash Rajbhar-led NDA ally Suhldeo Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP).

There are, in total, 11 candidates in the fray, including eight from the BJP and three from the SP.

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While hectic political activities were witnessed during the past two days by both factions, it seems the BJP has an edge now with eight candidates expected to emerge as winners.

Around 395 MLAs voted for these biennial polls in which eight of the SP and two of the SBSP cross-voted.

Counting of votes commenced at 5 pm and the results will be announced in the next couple of hours.

SP President Akhilesh Yadav admitted cross-voting by party MLAs and now conceded that his third candidate could lose. He wrote on social media, “Our third Rajya Sabha seat was a test to identify true friends and to know who is with the PDA from the heart and who is with the BJP.”

“It is against the conscience of backward people, Dalits, and minorities. Now everything is clear, this is the victory of the third seat,” he added.

On SP MLAs who voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections, Yadav said action would be taken against such people because the party believes that these people should be removed.

He admitted that it takes courage to vote against the government.

On the rebel SP MLAs, he suspected that they had been threatened by the government. “Someone must have been offered something, someone might need security,” he said.

“It was also being heard that a package deal had been done. I don’t know how big this deal is,” he said in a lighter vein.

Meanwhile, the lone BSP MLA from UP, Uma Shankar Pandey, voted for the BJP candidate in the elections. After casting his vote, he said the Opposition did not ask him to vote, so I voted for the BJP candidate Sanjay Seth who had sought his support.

Apna Dal’s Corona-infected MLA Neil Ratan Patel arrived to vote in an ambulance. He is under treatment at Civil Hospital, Lucknow.

There were reports of a scuffle between SBSP MLA Jagdish Rai and polling officials inside the polling booth. Rai said he had voted for the SP candidate. But when he showed the ballot paper to the agent, they (the officials) tried to snatch it from his hand.

On the other hand, Jansatta Dal Loktantrik leader Raja Bhaiya called the cross-voting a welcome change. Countering the statement of the SP chief, he said no one had given him the package. “I have voted in favour of the BJP. I have not even received any money.”

Actually, Akhilesh Yadav had said it was heard that a package deal had been made to get votes from the MLAs. UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya claimed that a total of 14 SP MLAs voted for BJP candidates.

“We have disappointed the SP camp. SP only takes care of its family and not PDA,” he said while adding that eight candidates would win in the Rajya Sabha polls while in the Lok Sabha polls, they would win all 80 seats of the state.

After expressing displeasure over the selection of SP’s Rajya Sabha candidates, party MLA Pallavi Patel finally voted for the SP candidate. She said, “I have voted in favor of PDA (Backward, Dalit and Minority).”

However, before this, she had decided to abstain from voting. She said she was the MLA of SP and Apna Dal Kamerawadi. On contesting the Lok Sabha elections, she said a decision would be taken after discussion.

She, however, denied having any rift with the SP leadership.

The eight candidates fielded by the BJP include former Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, UP BJP general secretary Amarpal Maurya, former UP minister Sangeeta Balwant Bind, party’s national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former lawmaker Sadhna Singh and former Agra mayor Naveen Jain. Prominent real estate promoter Sanjay Seth is the party’s eighth candidate.

The SP has fielded actor MP Jaya Bachchan, retired bureaucrat Alok Ranjan, and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman.

Returning officer of the polls Brij Bhushan Dubey said a candidate would require 36.37 first-preference votes for a straight win.

The BJP’s strength is 286 including RLD’s nine, 13 of the Apna Dal-S, Nishad Party’s six, and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party’s six.

The SP with 108 MLAs is assured of the support of two MLAs of its ally Congress, taking its strength to 110. However, two of its MLAs are in jail and are unable to vote in the elections along with a member of the SBSP. SBSP member Abbas Ansari, son of mafia Mukhtar, could have voted for the SP, but he is in jail.

The present strength of the UP assembly is 399 in the House of 403.