A day before the UP MLC elections in Ghaziabad, polling parties left for their respective polling stations carrying EVMs and other election material.
Voting for the 27 seats under local body constituencies in the biennial elections to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council began on Saturday. According to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh, 95 candidates are in the fray.
Polling will take place at 739 centres, and as many as 1,20,657 voters expected to exercise their franchise. Voting will be held for the following local authorities’ constituency — Moradabad-Bijnor, Rampur-Bareilly, Pilibhit-Shahjahanpur, Sitapur, Lucknow-Unnao, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Sultanpur, Barabanki, Bahraich, Gonda, Faizabad, Basti-Siddharthnagar, Gorakhpur-Maharajganj, Deoria, Azamgarh-Mau, Ballia, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Jhansi-Jalaun-Lalitpur, Kanpur-Fatehpur, Etawah-Farrukhabad, Agra-Firozabad, Meerut-Ghaziabad and Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur.
Expressing confidence of victory, UP CM Yogi Adityanath said, “After almost 4 decades, a ruling party will get majority in the Legislative Council. Anti-land mafia task force taking back encroached land from mafia, we will not demolish the shackles” of the poor on the encroached land till we rehabilitate them.”
These seats are spread over 58 districts of the state. Voting began at 8 am and will continue till 4 pm. Counting of votes will take place on April 12.
Nine MLCs from eight local authorities’ constituencies have been elected unopposed. The constituencies are Budaun, Hardoi, Kheri, Mirzapur-Sonbhadra, Banda-Hamirpur, Aligarh, Bulandshahr and Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri.
Two MLCs were elected unopposed from the Mathura-Eta-Mainpuri Local Authority constituency, while one MLC each from the rest of the constituencies was elected unopposed.
After a resounding victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the BJP has set its sights on becoming the single largest party in the state Legislative Council as well as securing a majority of the 36 seats in the Upper House.
This is an opportunity for the saffron party to enjoy a majority in both the houses of the Uttar Pradesh Legislature.
In the 100-member Legislative Council, the BJP currently has 34 MLCs, the Samajwadi Party 17 and the Bahujan Samaj Party four MLCs. Congress, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad Party have one member each.
The Teachers’ Group has 2 MLCs, while the Independent Group (‘Independent Group’) and Independents have 1 MLC. At present 38 seats are vacant.
Addressing BJP workers a week ago, Chief Minister Adityanath said it was important for the party to win 36 seats so that his government’s development agenda could be carried forward without any hindrance.
“Out of these 36 seats, the BJP has won nine unopposed. If the party wins all the 36 seats, you can assume that it will have a two-thirds majority in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council and will have no problem in pursuing development plans. is fast,” he said.
Voters in this biennial election are village headmen, members and presidents of block development councils, members and presidents of district panchayats and corporators in urban areas. MLAs and MPs are also voters in this poll.
The Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party have not fielded any candidates in the Legislative Council elections, making it a direct contest between the BJP and the main opposition Samajwadi Party in the state assembly.
Of the 36 BJP candidates, five are former Samajwadi Party leaders who had joined the saffron camp on the eve of the February-March state elections.
They are Shailendra Pratap Singh from Sultanpur local authority constituency, CP Chand from the Gorakhpur-Maharajganj local authorities, Ravishankar Singh ‘Pappu’, the grandson of former prime minister Chandrasekhar, from Ballia local authorities, Rama Niranjan from Jhansi-Jalaun-Lalitpur local authorities and Narendra Bhati from Bulandshahr local authorities.
The Samajwadi Party has announced its candidates for 34 seats excluding Meerut-Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr seats for its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Dr Kafeel Khan from Deoria, Mashkoor Ahmed from Rampur-Bareilly, MLC Sunil Kumar Sajan, Rajesh Kumar and Udayveer Singh have been fielded from Lucknow-Unnao, Barabanki and Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri seats respectively.
Adityanath has recently left the Legislative Council seat after being elected MLA from Gorakhpur Urban seat.
The Samajwadi Party has nominated Sanjay Lather to the post after the death of Leader of the Opposition in the Council Ahmed Hassan on February 19 after a prolonged illness.
In the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the BJP has won 255 seats, while its allies Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad Party have won 12 and six seats respectively.
The Samajwadi Party has won 111 seats, while its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal has won eight seats. SBSP, another ally of the Samajwadi Party, won six seats. Congress has won two seats, while BSP has won one seat.
with pti input