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BJP bags 4 MLC seats, Yogi Adityanath hails victory, Samajwadi Party draws a blank
The victory of BJP candidates is symbol of immense public trust in double engine govt, says Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory on four seats in the biennial election to five Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council seats has given a boost to the party’s campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The Samajwadi Party (SP) failed to open its account in the election.
Congratulating the party candidates, chief minister Yogi Adityanath said their victory was a symbol of immense public trust in the double engine government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The presence of hardworking and experienced members in the Legislative Council will be helpful in building new Uttar Pradesh of new India, he said.
The counting votes started at 8am on Thursday at counting centres in Bareilly, Jhansi, Gorakhpur and Kanpur. The counting continued till late night and the results were declared on Friday morning.
Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said the counting of votes was conducted peacefully and returning officers declared the results for all the five constituencies.
The BJP bagged three graduate seats of Gorakhpur-Faizabad, Bareilly-Moradabad, and Kanpur as well as one teachers’ seat Allahabad-Jhansi. An independent candidate won the Kanpur teachers’ seat.
BJP candidate Devendra Pratap Singh won the Gorakhpur- Faizabad graduate seat, defeating his nearest rival Karunakant Maurya of the SP by a margin of 17,455 votes. Gorakhpur is chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s bastion.
In his third consecutive victory, Singh was elected for the first time without counting the second preference votes.
Devendra Pratap Singh bagged 52,699 votes of a total of 1,09,223 votes polled. SP candidate Maurya got 34,244 votes.
Attributing his victory to the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Singh said that their supporters were always behind him and they worked hard for this historic victory.
He said that these results were a trailer of 2024 Lok Sabha elections and expressed confidence that the BJP would win all Lok Sabha seats next year.
Similarly, the BJP’s Arun Pathak won the Kanpur- Unnao graduate seat, defeating his nearest rival Kamlesh Yadav of the SP by a margin of 53,285 votes.
Jaipal Singh Vyast of the BJP won the Bareilly- Moradabad graduate seat, defeating his nearest rival Shiv Pratap Singh of the SP by 51,257 votes.
Babulal Tiwari of the BJP won the Allahabad-Jhansi teachers’ seat, defeating his nearest rival independent candidate Suresh Kumar Tripathi, a three-time MLC by 1,403 votes. The SP candidate was pushed to the third position. It was the first time the BJP fielded its candidate for the Allahabad- Jhansi teachers’ seat.
Independent candidate Raj Bahadur Singh Chandel surprised political analysts by winning the Kanpur teachers’ seat. He defeated his nearest rival independent candidate Hemraj Singh Gaur by 1,609 votes. The BJP candidate was pushed to the third position.
This is the sixth consecutive victory for Chandel since 1992.
“I am fighting for the rights of the teachers and improvement in the quality of education in the state,” Chandel said.
A political observer SK Srivastava said the elections for five graduate and teachers’ seats of the Legislative Council were held in 39 districts in east, west and central U.P. as well as the Bundelkhand region.
The BJP’s victory on four seats and the failure of the main opposition party, Samajwadi Party, to open its account in the election will give a thrust to the BJP campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, he said. The SP will have to analyse the defeat before starting the campaign for the Lok Sabha election, he added.
