LUCKNOW: Voting for 27 seats of the UP Legislative Council concluded with 98.11 per cent voters turning up to exercise their franchise sealing the fate of 95 candidates in the biennial elections on Saturday. UP CM Yogi Adityanath was among the early voters as he cast his vote in Gorakhpur in the early hours as voting commenced at 8 am.
According to the Election Commission of India, Rae Bareli registered the highest voting percentage of 99.35 followed by Pratapgrah at 99.25, Sitapur at 99.20 and Barabanki in the same bracket with 99.16. Gorakhpur, the stronghold of UP CM Yogi Adityanath, recorded the lowest voting percentage where 96.50 per cent voters turned up to exercise their right till the conclusion of the process at 4 pm. Gorakhpur was followed by Farrukhabad with 96.5 per cent turnout and Saharanpur with 96.69 per cent voting. State capital Lucknow recorded 98.90 percent turnout.
In all, 95 candidates were in the fray with 1,20,657 voters sealing their fate by exercising their franchise across 739 centres, said UP chief electoral officer, Ajay Shukla.
Of the total 36 seats of the local bodies constituencies up for grabs, the ruling BJP had already bagged nine -- Budaun, Hardoi, Kheri, Mirzapur-Sonbhadra, Banda-Hamirpur, Aligarh, Bulandshahr and Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri -- unopposed. Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri segment has two seats.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, voting was held for constituencies including 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, across 58 districts of the state. The results will be declared after the counting of votes on April 12.
Following its resounding victory in the Assembly polls, the BJP had set its eye on becoming the single-largest party in the state legislative council as well by winning a majority of the 36 seats. No ruling dispensation has achieved majority in both houses of the UP legislature after 1990.
In the 100-member Legislative Council, the BJP currently has 34 MLCs, the SP 17 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) four. The Congress, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and NISHAD party have one member each in the Upper House. The Teachers’ group and independent group have two MLCs each. As many as 38 seats are vacant at present of which 36 belong to local bodies constituency and one got vacated due to the demise of Leader of Opposition and SP MLC Ahmad Hassan after a prolonged illness last year and the remaining one is vacant as BJP MLC Jaiveer Singh has been elected to the Assembly.
In fact, the BP needs just eight more seats to touch the majority mark of 51 in the upper house after its tally of 34 went up to 43 after winning nine of the 36 seats unopposed. As per political experts, the BJP is set to achieve majority in the council for the first time under Yogi Adityanath as it was short of it during the tenures of Kalyan Singh, Rajnath Singh and Ram Prakash Gupta as CM. “This will be the second record by Yogi after returning to power in the state for a consecutive second term after completing a tenure of five years successfully,” says Prof AK Mishra, a political scientist.
The voters in this biennial election are people’s representatives at every level right from village pradhans to members and chairman of block development councils, members and chairman of zila panchayat, corporators in urban areas, MLAs and MPs. However, the current polls witnessed a straight fight between the opposition Samajwadi Party and the ruling BJP as the Congress and the BSP did not field any candidate.
Moreover, in April-May, another set of six council seats will fall vacant on which the state governor will nominate prominent persons from different walks of life on the recommendation of the state government. Similarly, on July 6, another 13 council seats will be vacated by the outgoing members.