BJP Ahead But Akhilesh Yadav's Party Gains Ground In UP MLC Elections

The Samajwadi Party managed to deliver a setback to the ruling BJP in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council elections, with an almost 50:50 split of seats on Wednesday, barely five months from the Assembly elections.

The BJP lost the Lucknow Graduates' seat and the Agra Teachers' seat to Akhilesh Yadav's SP. In Lucknow Graduates', the SP's Kanti Singh Patel defeated the BJP's Awanish Kumar Singh, who had held the seat. In Agra Teachers', Akash Agrawal won on the SP ticket.

Of the 11 graduates' and teachers' seats, results had been declared for 10, with the BJP winning six and the SP four. In the Varanasi Graduates' constituency, the SP is currently leading.

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The BJP's winners in the graduates' constituencies were Dinesh Kumar Goyal in Meerut and Manvendra Pratap Singh 'Guru Ji' in Agra. In the teachers' constituencies, the party's Umesh Dwivedi won Lucknow, Shrichand Sharma won Meerut, Hari Singh Dhillon won Bareilly-Moradabad, and Dhruv Kumar Tripathi won Gorakhpur-Faizabad.

Besides Lucknow Graduates' and Agra Teachers', the SP wrested Allahabad-Jhansi Graduates. Man Singh Yadav won this seat. SP's Lal Bihari Yadav won the Varanasi Teachers' seat with 11,612 votes.

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Reacting to the results in a post on X, former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said, "The MLC elections have packed up the BJP's bags and baggage."

He accused the BJP of malpractice and administrative manipulation in Gorakhpur and Varanasi, the regions represented in the Assembly and Parliament by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and PM Narendra Modi, respectively.

In the previous elections to these 11 seats in 2020, the BJP won six, the SP three, and independents two.