The State Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) has 403 electoral constituencies. In the Uttar Pradesh Elections, 2007, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party achieved unexpected majority status, leading to her emergence as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. This is the first time, since 1991 victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with a majority, that a single party has gained absolute majority; the last two decades having been mostly dominated by various coalitions among the Samajwadi Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Bahujan Samaj Party. One characteristic of the BSP win in 2007 was the amalgamation of Brahmin votes into this Dalit dominated party, as opposed to the decades-old trend of deep-rooted electoral divisions in the state between Dalits, Upper Castes, Muslims and different OBC groups, which tend to vote in blocks. Mayawati, having won 206 seats, took the oath of secrecy for the post of UP's next CM on 13 May 2007. She became Chief Minister for the fourth time. Along with her 19 cabinet rank ministers, 21 Ministers of State holding Independent .Charge were also sworn in by the Governor T. V. Rajeswar. Some of the prominent names of her cabinet colleagues are: Awadhpal Singh, Babu Singh Kushwaha, Badshah Singh, Nasimuddin Siddiqui, Rakesh Dhar Tripathi, Ratanlal Ahirwar and Sudhir Goyal. Former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party stood second in State with 97 seats.
Political leadership
The state has a record of providing national leadership; eight of India's fourteen Prime Minister's were from Uttar Pradesh. They are: Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Choudhary Charan Singh, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who represented a UP constituency, though he was born in Gwalior.
Ch. Charan singh, Ch. Ajeet Singh, Kokab Hamid, Sompal Shastri and many of the politicians are from Baghpat Distt.
The contemporary political scene is also interesting in the national context. Heirs-apparent to the Nehru-Gandhi family have adopted U.P. as their home state. Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi represents Rae Bareli and her son Rahul Gandhi Amethi, Sultanpur. Indira Gandhi's younger daughter-in-law Maneka Gandhi is a seven time BJP Parliamentarian from Aonla, while her son Varun Gandhi has also made his debut as a BJP politician and is a member of Lok Sabha from Pilibhit. Other prominent politicians include BJP leader and past Human Resources Development minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, SP leader and ex-Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP leader and now fourth time Chief Minister Mayawati, BJP President and ex-Chief Minister Rajnath Singh, former BJP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh , Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh and ex-Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and later of Uttarakhand, Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Ex-Deputy Chief & Finance Minister Laxmi Raman Acharya, Ex-Minister for State for Environment & Forest, & also Minister for Education [Vir Sen, Khurja & Hapur], Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Ex Information & Broadcasting Minister, Govt. of India, Zafar Ali Naqvi Minister of Education, UP Govt. etc.
At the lowest tier of political pyramid the state has a large number of village councils, known as Panchayats, which are similar to those found in other states in India.
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