Ashutosh Sinha of the Samajwadi Party won the Varanasi Division graduate position on Saturday.
Lucknow:
In a setback for the BJP in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Varanasi constituency, the party lost two seats in the legislative council elections after holding them for 10 years. Both seats, one reserved for professors and one for graduates, were won by candidates from the Samajwadi Party.
On Saturday, Ashutosh Sinha of the Samajwadi Party won the Varanasi Division graduate seat one day after his party colleague Lal Bihari Yadav won in the teachers’ electoral district.
On Tuesday, a vote for 11 seats was held for the Legislative Council of Uttar Pradesh, the upper house of the state legislature with five reserved for graduates and six for teachers. The mandate of the members, known as the MLC, had expired on May 6. Teachers’ associations linked to the BJP, the Samajwadi Party and Congress had contested the ballot box, with 199 candidates in the contest.
With the results of two seats still pending on Saturday, the BJP had won four of the 11 seats, the Samajwadi Party three and the independent candidates won two. Despite a favorable count for the ruling party, the achievements of the Samajwadi Party in the BJP stronghold have surprised many.
“It is a great victory. I am happy with our result,” said Lal Bihari Yadav, candidate from Samajwadi in the Varanasi Division Masters District.
Uttar Pradesh is one of the six states in India with a bicameral legislature, with two chambers: Vidhan Sabha or the Legislative Assembly and Vidhan Parishad or the Legislative Council. The legislative council has 100 members.
Prime Minister Modi has been elected to the Lok Sabha twice since Varanasi, winning the election first in 2014 with a whopping 36% margin over Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and a greater margin of 45% over the candidate of the Samajwadi Party in 2019. Before him, the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat was occupied by BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi.
(With inputs from agencies)
.
