The BJP and its allies won a good number of seats in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka during the elections for 28 legislative council seats across four states, even as the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) pushed back in Maharashtra by retaining the Nagpur seat.
The BJP won the Agra Graduates’ constituency, the Bareilly-Moradabad Teachers’ constituency, the Lucknow Teachers’ constituency and both the Teachers’ and Graduates’ constituencies in Meerut. The party also won the Gorakhpur-Faizabad Teachers’ seat, where independent candidate Rajiv Yadav has alleged voter manipulation. In Bihar, the BJP won two declared seats – Narendra Singh took the Tirhut Teachers’ constituency and NK Yadav won the Kosi Graduates’ seat – while the party was also leading in the Darbhanga Graduates’ constituency where counting is going on.
In Maharashtra, the Congress got a second consecutive win in the Nagpur Division Graduates’ constituency, a region regarded as a stronghold of the BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). With this victory, the Congress has opened its account in the legislative council elections across the four states. The outcome is huge as Nagpur is the home city of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and falls within the Lok Sabha constituency represented by Union minister Nitin Gadkari. The Samajwadi Party secured the Allahabad-Jhansi Graduates’ constituency along with the Teachers’ constituencies in Varanasi and Agra-Aligarh.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP won six of the 11 legislative council seats while the Samajwadi Party secured three.
