BJP wins 3 out of 5 Graduates’ constituencies seats in UP council, SP wins 2

BJP’s Avinash Kumar Singh on Sunday bagged the Lucknow graduates’ constituency seat for Uttar Pradesh legislative council with his party emerging winner on total three seats and SP on two out of the five seats following a tough fight for them. As per the results declared for graduates’ constituency seats gradually since Saturday, BJP bagged a total of three seats with Dr Manvendra Pratap Singh ‘Guruji’ winning the Agra seat and Dinesh Kumar Goyal Meerut’s.

The Samajwadi Party, on the other hand, bagged two out of the five graduates’ constituencies seats with SP’s Ashutosh Sinha winning the Varanasi seat and Dr Maan Singh Yadav the Allahabad-Jhansi division’s one. Both the SP candidates bagged the seats divesting them from the BJP, while the BJP’s Guruji’ won the Agra seat divesting it from the SP and Goyal by defeating four-time and sitting independent MLC Hem Singh Pundir.

The third win for the BJP came in the form of Avinash Kumar Singh, who won the Lucknow Graduate constituency, an election official said on Sunday. The voting for the five graduates’ constituencies along with the six seats for the teachers’ constituencies of the UP legislative councils had been held on Tuesday.

In results declared earlier on Friday for the six teachers’ constituency seats, three were bagged by the BJP while two by independents and one by the Samajwadi Party. BJP’s Umesh Dwivedi, Shrishchandra Sharma and Hari Singh Dhillon were declared winners from Lucknow, Meerut and Bareilly-Moradabad teachers’ constituencies respectively.

SP candidate Lal Bihari Yadav won from Varanasi teachers’ constituency and independents Akash Agarwal and Dhruv Kumar Tripathi won Agra and Faizabad teachers’ constituencies respectively. Polling was held on Tuesday for 11 Legislative Council seats — five reserved for graduates and six for teachers.

BJP, SP, Congress and teachers’ associations contested the polls, with 199 candidates in the fray. The BSP did not contest the polls. The term of office of the MLCs from these constituencies had expired on May 6.

Following the declaration of results, the 100-strong UP legislative council has now 55 Samajwadi Party members, 25 of BJP, eight of the Bahujan Samaj Party, two of the Congress, one of Apna Dal (Sonelal), two of Sikshak Dal and four independents. Three seats in the council are still vacant.