Lucknow, Jan 30 : With elections to 10 Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh, scheduled to be held next month, the stage is set for an interesting contest between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the INDIA bloc, before the Lok Sabha election.

Among the 10 Rajya Sabha members from state retiring in April, nine belong to the BJP and one to the Samajwadi Party.

The February 27 biennial election has set the stage for an interesting contest between the NDA and INDIA constituents.

While the BJP has already started making efforts to retain nine Rajya Sabha seats it had won in the 2018 biennial elections from the state, SP is confident of increasing its strength by countering the ruling party's game plan.

In 2018, when Rajya Sabha polls were held, the BJP had purportedly engineered cross-voting by opposition MLAs.

Back then, the BJP had 312 members in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly. Its allies, the Apna Dal (Sonelal) and the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), had nine and four MLAs, respectively.

Bahujan Samaj Party nominee Bhimrao Ambedkar lost the election while the BJP's ninth candidate Anil Agarwal won.

The scenario has changed after the 2022 assembly election as the SP's tally in the Uttar Pradesh assembly has increased from 47 MLAs (2017) to 108 MLAs currently.

The strength of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), an INDIA bloc member, has also increased from a single MLA to nine. The Congress' numbers have come down from seven to two MLAs.

In all, the INDIA bloc has 119 MLAs in Uttar Pradesh.

A candidate will require 37 first-preference votes to secure a seat in the Rajya Sabha and the INDIA bloc is in a comfortable position to send three members to the Upper House of Parliament.

In the NDA camp, the BJP has 252 MLAs, Apna Dal (S) 13, and the Nishad party and the SBSP six each.

With a strength of 277 MLAs, the NDA is in position to send seven candidates to the Rajya Sabha.

It will be left with 18 extra votes and even if two votes of the Jansatta Dal Loktantrik and a one BSP vote are combined, the NDA will not be in position to bag the additional seat.

Similarly, the INDIA bloc's eight extra votes will not be enough to get it a fourth seat.

"The INDIA bloc will maintain a watch on activities of the rival camp as well as on alliance MLAs to check cross-voting in the biennial election, since this will send a wrong message of disunity in the alliance before the Lok Sabha election," said a Samajwadi Party leader.

The nine BJP members set to retire in April are Ashok Bajpai, Anil Jain, Anil Agarwal, Kanta Kardam, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, GVL Narasimha Rao, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Harnath Singh Yadav and Vijay Pal Tomar.

Jaya Bachchan will be the lone SP member retiring from the Rajya Sabha.

The election notification will be issued on February 8. The last date for the filing of the nomination is February 15 and the last date for their withdrawal is February 20.

Polling will be held on February 27 and the results announced the same day.

/IANS