The Ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh has retained four seats of the state legislative council while one was won by an Independent in the biennial polls held for five seats of three teachers and two graduate constituencies held on January 30.

Counting of votes had started on Thursday morning while the results were declared late in the night.

The principal Opposition Samajwadi Party contested all the five seats but could not win a single one. The party, which has nine members in the 100-member legislative council, had required just one more seat to get the post of leader of the Opposition, but failed to do so.

However, the picture of the council remained the same after the results of the 5 seats with ruling BJP holding the 2/3 rd majority with 75 seats. BSP, Apna Dal (S), NISHAD Party and Jansatta Party have one seat each while Teachers group, Independent Group and Independent have two each. There was no Congress or RLD member in the Upper House.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath congratulated the winning candidates in the Council elections.

Taking to Twitter, the CM wrote: “The victory of the BJP candidates in the elections to the Upper House of the State Legislature testifies immense public faith in the double engine government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

The chief minister said that the presence of hardworking members who have deep faith in democratic values in UP, will enhance the dignity of the Legislative Council. Contribution of experienced new members will prove to be helpful in building the ‘New Uttar Pradesh of New India’.

He also conveyed his best wishes for the bright future of the newly elected council members.

Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya said the SP’s mess has been cleared in these council polls. He said SP’s anti-development politics and hooliganism has been defeated and the intelligentsia has blessed the BJP.

The biennial polls were held for Gorakhpur-Faizabad graduate constituency, Kanpur graduate constituency, Bareilly-Moradabad graduate constituency, Allahabad and Jhansi teacher constituency and Kanpur teacher constituency.

BJP candidate Jaipal Singh has registered his third consecutive victory with a huge margin in Bareilly-Moradabad graduate seat. He defeated Shiv Pratap Singh of SP by 51257 votes. This is the eighth victory of the invincible BJP on the seat since 1986.

BJP candidate Arun Pathak won the Kanpur graduate seat for the third time. He defeated Kamlesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party by 53185 votes.

BJP’s Devendra Pratap has created a record by winning for the fourth time the Gorakhpur graduate seat. Devendra Pratap got a total of 51,699 votes while runner’s up SP’s Karunakanth received 34244 votes.

BJP’s Babulal Tiwari won the Allahabad-Jhansi MLC seat.BJP candidate defeated his rival Suresh Kumar Tripathi by 1,403 votes.

Independent candidate Raj Bahadur Singh Chandel has won the Kanpur teachers seat. He was elected from the seat and presently chairman of the question committee of the council.