Picture used for representational purpose The Samajwadi Party (SP) won two seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) one in the UP Legislative Council election to three graduates’ constituencies results of which were announced on Saturday. Counting was underway in two other graduates’ constituencies of Lucknow and Meerut till late on Saturday night.
The Allahabad-Jhansi and Varanasi division seats were won by SP candidates Maan Singh Yadav and Ashutosh Sinha, while BJP candidate Manvendra Pratap Singh alias “Guruji” won the Agra division seat, said Joint Chief Election Officer Avaneesh Saxena.
“The polling for the MLC elections was held through ballots and counting has been ongoing for the past 48 hours. We expect to announce the results for the two remaining seats soon,” said Saxena.
Polling was held on December 1 for 11 seats — five reserved for graduates and six for teachers. The term of the MLCs from these constituencies expired on May 6.
In the six teachers’ constituencies, the ruling BJP had won three seats while the SP had one seat. The rest were bagged by Independent candidates. Results for the six seats were announced Friday.
Currently, the SP has 52 MLCs in the 100-member UP Legislative Council, followed by BJP’s 19. The Bahujan Samajwadi Party has eight MLCs, Congress two, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Shiksha Dal one each. There are three Independents, and 14 seats are vacant.
IAS officer dies during poll duty
A senior IAS officer who was on duty for the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council polls in Varanasi died on Saturday morning after suffering a cardiac arrest a day before.
A 1998-batch IAS officer, Ajay Kumar Singh (50), was appointed in Varanasi as an observer for the ongoing MLC elections to the teachers’ and graduates’ constituencies. He is survived by his wife Neena Singh, also an IAS officer from the same batch and is currently posted as secretary to the UP government, and a 15-year-old son.