The keenly contested elections to 11 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council graduate and teachers’ constituency seats showed an early edge for the ruling BJP, which retained three seats and led on four, while the Samajwadi Party won one and was ahead on another as counting progressed on Tuesday. A clear picture of the outcome is expected on Wednesday when the Election Commission is likely to announce the result.
The BJP retained the Meerut graduates’ and teachers’ seats, with its candidates Dinesh Kumar Goyal and Shrichand Sharma securing victories.
BJP candidate Dr Hari Singh Dhillon also retained the Bareilly-Moradabad division teachers’ seat. All three seats were previously held by the BJP.
The SP’s Lal Bihari Yadav won the Varanasi division teachers’ seat for a second consecutive term.
The BJP was leading in the Gorakhpur-Faizabad teachers’, Agra graduates’, Lucknow teachers’ and Allahabad-Jhansi graduates’ constituencies. The SP was ahead in the Agra teachers’ seat.
The elections have assumed significance ahead of the 2027 UP assembly polls, with both parties seeking to strengthen their position in the 100-member Upper House. In the 2020 elections, the BJP had won six seats, the SP three, while two went to independents.
Counting began at 8 am at centres in seven districts, including Lucknow, Varanasi, Agra, Meerut, Jhansi, Bareilly and Gorakhpur. The process was slow as ballot papers were sorted and bundled before counting under the single transferable vote system.
{{/usCountry}}Counting began at 8 am at centres in seven districts, including Lucknow, Varanasi, Agra, Meerut, Jhansi, Bareilly and Gorakhpur. The process was slow as ballot papers were sorted and bundled before counting under the single transferable vote system.
{{/usCountry}}The BJP led in the Agra graduates’ constituency, while the SP was ahead in the teachers’ seat after the first round of counting.
BJP candidate Dr Manvendra Singh secured 5,848 votes in the graduates’ constituency against 5,134 polled by SP candidate Shashank Yadav, leading by 714 votes. Independent candidate Ambrish Pal Singh received 1,374 votes.
In the Agra teachers’ constituency, SP candidate Aakash Agarwal led BJP rival Hari Kishore Tiwari by 691 votes after the first round. Agarwal secured 5,550 votes against Tiwari’s 4,858.
The counting witnessed protests by SP workers over alleged irregularities and delays. However, the returning officer rejected the allegations, saying votes were being verified in the presence of candidates.
In the Varanasi division teachers’ constituency, SP candidate Lal Bihari Yadav secured a second consecutive victory. BJP candidate Dr Pramod Mishra finished second.
Counting for the graduates’ seat was scheduled to begin on Wednesday morning.
A total of 6,999 ballot papers had been counted so far. BJP candidate Ashok Kumar Rathore secured 3,291 votes against 2,307 polled by SP candidate Dr Man Singh Yadav, leading by 984 votes, in the Allahabad-Jhansi graduates’ constituency.
BJP candidate Dhruv Kumar Tripathi took a narrow lead of 110 votes over Rajiv Yadav, backed by the Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh (Ekjut) in the Gorakhpur-Faizabad teachers’ constituency.
Dhruv Tripathi secured 3,813 votes, against 3,703 polled by Rajiv Yadav. Samajwadi Party candidate Sanjayan Tripathi was third with 2,744 votes.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Umesh Dwivedi established a substantial lead in the first round in the Lucknow teachers’ constituency, securing 7,189 first-preference votes against 3,537 polled by SP candidate Sushil Kumar. Dwivedi was ahead by 3,652 votes, with counting continuing.
Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa said, “The counting process is time-consuming as the Legislative Council elections follow a system of proportional representation via the single transferable vote (STV) method.” The ECI has directed the district administration to deploy adequate security forces at the counting centres and to conduct the counting of the ballot papers under video cameras and CCTV.
In the 100-member legislative council, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has 83 members. The BJP alone has 79 MLCs, while the SP has 10 MLCs.