BJP and Samajwadi Party share seats in Uttar Pradesh MLC elections

According to a report by Amar Ujala, in the Uttar Pradesh MLC elections, the BJP won 6 seats and the Samajwadi Party (SP) won 5 seats out of 11. However, there have been varying reports regarding the number of seats, with a Times of India report stating that the BJP won 4 out of 11 seats.

According to an NDTV report, results for 10 out of 11 graduate and teacher seats were declared, in which the BJP won 6 and the SP won 4 seats. The SP snatched the Lucknow Graduate and Agra Teachers seats from the BJP. On the Lucknow Graduate seat, SP's Kanti Singh Patel defeated BJP's Avnish Kumar Singh, while Akash Agarwal won the Agra Teachers seat. Additionally, Man Singh Yadav won the Allahabad-Jhansi Graduate seat.

The SP has dominated the Varanasi seats. According to Amar Ujala, SP candidate Ashutosh Sinha won the Varanasi Graduate seat by securing 55,046 votes with a margin of 19,932 votes. On the other hand, according to an NDTV report, SP's Lal Bihari Yadav won the Varanasi Teachers seat with 11,612 votes.

Among the winning BJP candidates, according to NDTV, Dinesh Kumar Goyal won from Meerut and Manvendra Pratap Singh 'Guru Ji' from Agra on the graduate seats. On the teacher seats, Umesh Dwivedi from Lucknow, Shrichand Sharma from Meerut, Hari Singh Dhillon from Bareilly-Moradabad, and Dhruv Kumar Tripathi from Gorakhpur-Faizabad won.

Tension was witnessed at the counting centers during the election process. According to a Times of India report, there were allegations of attacks and electoral irregularities. SP's Akash Agarwal claimed that BJP supporters physically assaulted him.

Reacting to the results, former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav posted on X, "The MLC elections have packed the BJP's bags." According to NDTV, he accused the BJP of administrative manipulation and attempts at irregularities in the Gorakhpur and Varanasi constituencies. These areas represent Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, respectively.

According to an Amar Ujala report, the Samajwadi Party is trying to win the Rohilkhand region through social engineering. By including rebel BJP leaders and strengthening its base in the Bareilly-Budaun area, the SP aims to increase its hold.

This election was held 5 months before the assembly elections. According to NDTV, in the 2020 elections, out of these 11 seats, the BJP won 6, the SP won 3, and independent candidates won 2 seats.

On the other hand, according to a report by The Hindu, SP spokesperson Rajkumar Bhati participated in a Buddhist Dhamma Diksha ceremony in Delhi, which led to him being trolled by the BJP and receiving a reprimand from the party's top leadership. In this ceremony, Bhati read Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's 22 vows. In the video, he was seen clearly saying, "I will not consider Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh as gods, nor will I worship them. I will not consider Ram and Krishna as gods, nor will I worship them." He also took a vow to refuse religious rituals performed by Brahmin priests.