In the 100-member Legislative Council, the BJP currently has 34 MLCs, the SP 17 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) four.
According to the Election Commission of India, an average of 90.42 per cent polling was recorded in the state till 2 pm, with Barabanki registering the lowest turnout at 84 per cent, while Ghazipur constituency recorded the highest turnout at 94.67 per cent.
The Congress, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and NISHAD party have one member each in the House. The Teachers’ group has two MLCs, while the independent group Nirdal Samooh and Independents have one MLC each.
There are 95 candidates in the fray and polling is being held at 739 centres, according to the Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer.
As many as 1,20,657 voters are expected to exercise their franchise in these polls.
As many as 38 seats are vacant at present.
The voters in this biennial election are village pradhans, members and chairman of block development councils, members and chairman of zila panchayat, and corporators in urban areas.
MLAs and MPs are also voters in this poll.
The Congress and the BSP have not fielded any candidate in the legislative council polls, making it a straight fight between the BJP and the SP, the principal opposition in the state assembly.
Of the 36 BJP candidates, five are former SP leaders, who joined the saffron camp on the eve of the February-March state polls.
They are Shailendra Pratap Singh from Sultanpur local authority constituency, CP Chand from the Gorakhpur-Maharajganj local authorities,
Ravishankar Singh ‘Pappu’, the grandson of former prime minister Chandrasekhar, from Ballia local authorities, Rama Niranjan from Jhansi-Jalaun-Lalitpur local authorities and Narendra Bhati from Bulandshahr local authorities.
The SP declared its candidates for 34 seats, leaving the Meerut-Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr seats for its ally the Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Prominent among those who have been fielded are Dr Kafeel Khan from Deoria, Mashkoor Ahmad from Rampur-Bareilly, sitting MLCs Sunil Kumar Sajan, Rajesh Kumar and Udayveer Singh from Lucknow-Unnao, Barabanki, and Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri seats respectively.
Adityanath has recently quit the legislative council seat after getting elected as an MLA from Gorakhpur Urban seat.
With the death of Leader of the Opposition in the council, Ahmad Hasan, on February 19 after a prolonged illness, the SP has named Sanjay Lathar to the post.
In the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the BJP won 255 of the 403 seats in the assembly, while its allies Apna Dal (Sonelal) and NISHAD party have won 12 and six seats respectively. The SP won 111 seats, while its ally the Rashtriya Lok Dal won eight.
The SBSP, another ally of the Samajwadi Party, has won six seats. The Congress has won two seats, while the BSP has won one seat
