BJP sweeps UP Council polls, Samajwadi Party draws a blank

In a development that surprised few, the BJP swept the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council polls winning 33 of the 36 seats for which elections were held on Saturday. The results of the polls were declared on Tuesday.

Samajwadi Party (SP), BJP's main rival drew a blank in the polls while the independent candidates registered victory in three seats. The saffron party, however, suffered a setback in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where the wife of a mafia don won as an independent candidate. The BJP nominee was finished third, behind the SP candidate.

BJP had managed to win nine seats without any contest after the rival candidates either withdrew at the last moment or their nomination papers were rejected by the returning officers on technical grounds.

BJP nominees won from Ghazipur, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Fatehpur-Kanpur, Lucknow, Sitapur, Unnao, Raebareli, Jaunpur, Baharaich, Gorakhpur, Gonda, Ballia, Farrukhabad, Jhansi-Lalitpur-Jalaun, Prayagraj-Kaushambi, Pilibhit-Shahjahanpur. The independents won from Varanasi, Pratapgarh and Azamgarh seats.

The results of the past few Council polls showed that the party in power tends to win the maximum number of seats and as such, the BJP's massive win came as no surprise.

In 2016, when the SP was in power in the state it had won 31 of the 36 seats. Similarly, the BSP had won 34 of the 36 seats for which elections were held in 2010 when the party was in power in the state.

UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath hailed the BJP's massive win in the Council polls and said that the results reflected the peoples' faith and trust in the saffron party's policies and programs.

SP president Akhilesh Yadav, however, said that the BJP misused government machinery to win the polls. ''At many places our candidates were not allowed to file nomination papers,'' he alleged.

With this victory, BJP attained majority in the UP Council. The party now had 68 members in a House of 100. The SP has 17 members.

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