BJP sweeps UP Council polls by winning 33 of 36 seats, but loses to independent in Varanasi

The main opposition Samajwadi Party, which was in a straight fight with the BJP in the absence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress, failed to open its account
BJP Flags (Photo | PTI)
BJP Flags (Photo | PTI)

LUCKNOW: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has swept the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council biennial polls by winning 33 of the 36 seats up for grabs. However, the party failed to save pride in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of PM Narendra Modi. Last month, the party had registered a resounding victory in the UP Assembly elections.

In Varanasi, Annapurna Singh, an independent candidate and wife of local strongman Brijesh Singh, won the Council seat convincingly by getting 4230 votes pushing the BJP candidate to third position as per the results declared here on Tuesday. In 2016, Brijesh Singh had won the same seat as an independent and the BJP had not fielded up a candidate against him. But this time, the BJP decided to contest but failed to make a difference.

Brijesh Singh has been winning the Varanasi segment of UP Council for the last 24 years but in the current contest, the BJP falling to third position in the PM's constituency with SP at number two will worry the party leadership.

Besides Varanasi, the BJP also lost the Azamgarh and Pratapgarh seats to independent candidates. In Azamgarh, Vikrant Singh, son of sitting BJP MLC Yashwant Singh, won the election. Yashwant Singh was recently expelled from the BJP for fielding his son against the official candidate of the party. In Pratapgarh also, the ruling party failed to break the charisma of Raja Bhaiyya and lost the seat to his cousin Akshay Pratap Singh of Jansattha Dal Loktantrik, the political outfit of Raja Bhaiyya.

In all, 95 candidates were in the fray in 36 council seats and the ruling BJP had been declared the winner unopposed in nine seats. The counting of votes in the elections for the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council began on Tuesday morning. The polling was held at 739 centres, and as many as 1,20,657 voters were eligible to exercise their franchise in these polls.

The main opposition Samajwadi Party, which was in a straight fight with the BJP in the absence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress, failed to open its account. The BSP and Congress had not fielded candidates in the Council elections.

Prominent among the SP candidates was Dr Kafeel Khan, the Gorakhpur paediatrician who was jailed earlier for his alleged role in the children’s death in BRD Medical College due to snapping of oxygen supply in 2017. Dr Kafeel Khan lost from Deoria to BJP’s Ratanpal Singh.

After the declaration of results, now the BJP has become a party having majority in both houses of the state legislature. In the upper house of 100 members, the BJP has now 66 members, SP 17, BSP 4, Congress, Apna Dal (S), Nishad Party and Jansatta Dal of Raja Bhaiyya one each, independents 6 and three seats are vacant.

The local authorities’ constituencies for which voting was held included 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. These seats were spread over 58 districts in the state.

However, for SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who has already been facing dissent from different quarters of the party, losing the bastion in Etawah-Farrukhabad may make his path tougher.

Moreover, the result of these council election will have a psychological impact on the preparations of the parties to accomplish Mission 2024. “While the BJP will feel much stronger and meaty, the SP will have to gather itself for a tough battle of ballots ahead in 2024,” says Prof AK Mishra, a political scientist.

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