The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party bagged four of the five seats in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council polls on Friday. The fifth seat went to an independent candidate.

In all five seats Samajwadi Party was the main opposition party.

Among the five seats three are graduates’ seats and two teachers’ seats and the BJP managed to bag all the three graduates’ seats — Gorakhpur-Faizabad, Prayagraj-Jhansi and Kanpur-Unnao. The party also won from the Moradabad teachers’ constituency.

Independent candidate Raj Bahadur Singh Chandel won from the Kanpur teachers’ constituency.

These polls were significant for the SP, which was hoping to increase its number in the Upper House of the Uttar Pradesh Legislature in order to be able to elect a leader of opposition. Since neither Congress nor Bahujan Samaj Party fielded candidates, the council polls were a direct contest between the BJP and the SP.

In the Gorakhpur-Faizabad graduates’ seat, the BJP had once again fielded outgoing MLC Devendra Pratap Singh. Singh defeated Karunakant Maurya of the SP by 17,455 votes by bagging 51,699 votes against Maurya’s 34,244 votes.

In the Kanpur-Unnao graduates’ seat, BJP candidate Arun Pathak won for the third time. He defeated Kamlesh Yadav of SP by 53,285 votes. Pathak polled 62,601 votes and Yadav got only 9,316 votes.

In the Bareilly-Faizabad graduates’ seat, BJP’s Jaipal Singh defeated SP’s Shiv Pratap Singh by 51,257 votes. Jaipal polled 66,179 votes, while Shiv Pratap got 14,922 votes.

Notably, the Bareilly-Faizabad seat is a traditional BJP seat and the saffron party has been winning it since 1986.

In the Prayagraj-Jhansi teachers’ constituency, BJP’s Babulal Tiwari defeated three-time MLC Suresh Kumar Tripathi by 1,403 votes. Tiwari got 10,205 votes and Tripathi polled 8,802 votes.

Congratulating the winners, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that the victory of the BJP candidates in the election to the Upper House of the state legislature testified to immense public faith in the double-engine government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said that the presence of hardworking members, who had deep faith in democratic values in UP, would enhance the dignity of the legislative council and that the contribution of experienced new members would prove to be helpful in building a ‘New Uttar Pradesh of New India’.