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Uttar Pradesh is the fifth largest state in India in terms of area, and the largest in terms of population. Uttar Pradesh has always played a prominent role in the Indian politics and culture. In fact, the politics of Uttar Pradesh plays a crucial role in the politics of Delhi. Eight of the fourteen Prime Ministers of India have been from Uttar Pradesh. They are Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Choudhary Charan Singh, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Chandra Shekhar and Atal Behari Vajpayee.
UP has 80 seats in the Lok Sabha, and 31 seats in the Rajya Sabha, and the state has a bicameral legislature, comprising Vidhan Sabha as the lower house and Vidhan Parishad as the upper house. Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha comprises of 404 MLAs. There are 70 districts in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
There are fourteen political parties in Uttar Pradesh, vying for the seat of power in the state. In the 2007 assembly elections, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) achieved majority, thus making her the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. It was the first time since 1991, that a single party in Uttar Pradesh achieved an absolute majority. During the last decade and half, the politics of Uttar Pradesh was dominated by various compromises of coalitions among the Samajwadi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. With this electoral win, Mayawati has become the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time.
However, despite the rapid ascent of BSP, the power of Nehru-Gandhi family heirs in the politics of Uttar Pradesh cannot be undermined. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Menaka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi have considerable political sway among the masses of Uttar Pradesh. Congress President Sonia Gandhi stands in the Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli, while her son Rahul Gandhi stands from Amethi. Among other prominent politicians of the state include the ex-chief minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, the chief of Rashtriya Lok Dal, Ajit Singh, the former Prime Minister and the liberal face of BJP, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the BJP President, Rajnath Singh. There are a large number of Panchyats (village councils) in Uttar Pradesh, most developed of which is Shahabad in the Maharajganj district of the state.
The Congress has lost considerable number of votes in Uttar Pradesh after the destruction of the Babri Masjid, and the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party filled in the vacuum. The Bahujan Samaj Party has gained popularity based on their Ambedkarite ideology. Kansi Ram was the founder of this party.
With so many parties fighting for power, politics in the state is currently in a state of great flux, as politics in India generally is.
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