Lucknow: A month after its resounding victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the BJP swept the biennial polls to the state’s legislative council by winning 33 out of 36 constituencies. According to the results declared Tuesday, the BJP won 24 of the 27 the local authority seats, where polling was held last week. In addition, the BJP had won nine of the 36 seats unopposed.
The results take the BJP past the halfway-mark in the 100-member House. Now, it will have 67 members in the Upper House of the state legislature. However, the BJP suffered a setback in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency. The saffron party finished a distant third.
The Samajwadi Party (SP), the main opposition in the state, drew a blank. Two independents and a candidate from the Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) emerged victorious in the elections.
In Varanasi, BJP’s Sudama Patel was third with just 170 votes as Independent candidate Annapurna Singh secured a resounding victory with 4,234 votes. Samajwadi Party’s Umesh Yadav got 345 votes, Varanasi District Magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma said.
Before the polls, the BJP had 34 members in the House. “In the last elections held in 2016, the BJP had not won any of the seats, which went to polls this time,” UP minister JPS Rathore informed.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath congratulated the winners. He said the BJP’s resounding victory in the council polls has again established that people of the state have faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The mood at the BJP office here was upbeat as jubilant party workers danced and distributed sweets to mark the party’s victory.
Not much activity was seen at the Samajwadi Party office. Sources said SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and some other leaders were present in the party office in the state capital.
The highest victory margin was of 5,939 votes in the Moradabad-Bijnor constituency, where BJP’s Satyapal Saini defeated Ajay Malik of the SP. The victory margin was the lowest in the Jhansi-Jalaun-Lalitpur seat, where Rama Niranjan of the BJP defeated SP’s Shyam Sundar Singh by 579 votes.
Akshay Pratap Singh of Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) defeated BJP’s Hari Pratap Singh in Pratapgarh by a margin of 1,107 votes. The BJP lost the Azamgarh-Mau seat to independent candidate Vikrant Singh ‘Rishu’ by 2,813 votes.
There were 95 candidates in the fray and the polling was held at 739 centres, according to the Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer.
In the 100-member Legislative Council, the BJP will now have 67 MLCs, SP 17 and the Bahujan Samaj Party four.