LUCKNOW: The 36 new members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, who were recently elected from local authority constituencies, took oath here on Tuesday.
UP Legislative Council chairman Kunwar Manvendra Singh administered the oath of office to the newly elected members. All the members took oath in Hindi, while some of them raised the slogan of "Jai Shri Ram" and "Bharat Mata ki Jai" after the oath-taking ceremony.
Prominent among those who took the oath are Minister of State (independent charge) Dinesh Pratap Singh, who was elected from Rae Bareli constituency. Two independent MLCs and MLC of Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) from Pratapgarh, Akshay Pratap Singh also took oath on the day.
Rest of the winning legislators are from the BJP.
A court in Pratapgarh had recently cancelled the bail of Akshay Pratap Singh and ordered his arrest in a case of getting arms licence on a fake address, a government counsel said on Saturday.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, UP BJP chief and cabinet minister Swatantra Dev Singh were also present on the occasion.
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. One of the three local authority seats it failed to bag was in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency, where it stood a distant third.
According to the results declared on April 12, the BJP won 24 of the 27 seats, where polling was held last week.
In addition, the BJP had won nine of the 36 seats unopposed. Two independents and a candidate from the Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) emerged victorious in the elections. 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. Before the polls, the BJP had 34 members in the House.
In the 100-member Legislative Council, the BJP will now have 67 MLCs, Samajwadi Party (SP) 17 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) four. The Congress, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and the NISHAD party have one member each in the House.
The teachers' group has two MLCs, while the independent group (Nirdal Samooh) and Independents have one MLC each.
Meanwhile, Adityanath had vacated his council seat recently, while former leader of opposition Ahmad Hassan of the SP died in February this year.
The voters in this biennial election are village pradhans, members and chairmen of block development councils and zila panchayats, and corporators in urban areas.
Members of legislative assembly (MLAs) and members of parliament (MPs) also vote.
The Congress and the BSP did not field any candidate in the legislative council elections, making it a direct fight between the BJP and the SP.