UP Legislative Council poll process set in motion

The process for the biennial Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council election was set in motion today with the issuance of notification for the polls to 13 seats.

The voting will be held on April 26 and the results will be declared the same day.

To ensure victory, a candidate needs 29 first-preference votes, the state election office said.

Arithmetically, the ruling BJP and its allies are likely to win 11 of the 13 seats comfortably and still be left with five additional votes.

The BJP has a brute strength in the state Assembly, along with its allies.

In the 100-member Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, the BJP has only 13 members, the Samajwadi Party (SP) 61, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) nine, the Congress two, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) one and others 12. Two seats are vacant.

According to the Election Commission (EC), the tenure of 13 MLCs, including SP national president Akhilesh Yadav and two ministers in the Yogi Adityanath-led state government, Mahendra Kumar Singh and Mohsin Raza, will end on May 5.

Of the 13 seats falling vacant, seven were held by the SP, two each by the BJP and the BSP and one by the RLD. The remaining seat was held by former SP minister Ambika Chaudhary, but it fell vacant when he switched over to the BSP.

Apart from the SP chief, the six other MLCs from the party whose terms are coming to an end are -- state party chief Naresh Chandra Uttam, senior party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary, Umar Ali Khan, Madhu Gupta, Ramsakal Gurjar and Vijay Yadav.

The other MLCs, whose terms end on May 5, are Vijay Pratap and Sunil Kumar Chittor (both from the BSP) and Chaudhary Mushtaq, the lone RLD member.

The last date for nomination filing for the polls is April 16. The scrutiny of nominations will be done on April 17, while the last date for withdrawal of the same is April 19.