Lucknow: The BJP won six of the 11 seats in the Uttar Pradesh legislative council elections while the Samajwadi Party emerged victorious in five, including two seats in Varanasi, as results of two pending seats were declared officially Thursday afternoon.
Both the seats went to the SP.
“Ashutosh Sinha of the Samajwadi Party has been declared elected from the Varanasi Graduates’ Constituency in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council biennial elections-2026 for five graduates’ and six teachers’ constituencies. “He secured victory by polling a total of 55,046 votes,” a brief statement by poll officials said.
A senior district official told PTI that SP candidate Kanti Singh won the Lucknow Graduates’ constituency and has been issued the certificate of election.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav described the BJP’s performance as a “double defeat” and claimed that the results have laid the groundwork for his party’s victory in the 2027 assembly polls.
In a post on X, he claimed that the BJP lost the Varanasi Graduates’ constituency both in the initial counting and the subsequent recounting, calling it a “double defeat of the double engine government”.
Polling for the 11 legislative council seats was held October 23 and the counting of votes began Tuesday.
According to results declared by the end of Wednesday, the BJP had won Agra Graduates’ constituency, Bareilly-Moradabad Teachers’ constituency, Lucknow Teachers’ constituency, Meerut Teachers’ and Graduates’ constituencies, and Gorakhpur-Faizabad Teachers’ constituency.
The SP had won Allahabad-Jhansi Graduates’ constituency, and Varanasi and Agra-Aligarh Teachers’ constituencies.
According to data shared earlier, Kanti Singh polled 51,168 votes against 36,313 secured by BJP nominee Avneesh Kumar Singh after more than eight rounds of counting.
In the Varanasi Graduates’ constituency, Sinha got 50,462 votes against BJP candidate Kedar Nath Singh’s 33,478 after the ninth round of counting of first-preference votes.
Kedar Nath Singh conceded defeat in a social media post. He thanked voters for their support and said he accepted the mandate with humility and in accordance with democratic norms.
“Although we could not achieve the expected success in this election, your affection, cooperation and trust will always remain invaluable to me,” the BJP candidate wrote in Hindi.
The MLC polls were being seen as a prestige battle between the BJP and the SP ahead of next year’s Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
Before the polls, the BJP held six of the 11 seats – Agra, Meerut-Saharanpur and Lucknow Graduates’ seats and Bareilly-Moradabad, Lucknow and Meerut-Saharanpur Teachers’ constituencies.
The SP held three – Varanasi and Allahabad-Jhansi Graduates’ seats and Varanasi Teachers’ constituency.
The remaining two seats — Agra and Gorakhpur-Faizabad Teachers’ constituencies — were held by Independents.
