Polls to 11 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council seats to be held on December 1

Lucknow: The Election Commission (EC) on Monday announced that the biennial election to 11 seats of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council -- five Graduates' and six Teachers' constituencies -- will be held on December 1. The term of office of the 11 MLCs from these constituencies expired on May 6, it said.

The MLCs from Graduates' constituencies who have retired are Kanti Singh (Lucknow division graduates'), Kedar Nath Singh (Varanasi division graduates'), Aseem Yadav (Agra division graduates'), Hem Singh Pundir (Meerut division graduates') and Yagya Dutt Sharma (Allahabad-Jhansi division graduates').

The MLCs from Teachers' constituencies who have retired are Umesh Dwivedi (Lucknow division teachers'), Chet Narayan Singh (Varanasi division teachers'), Jagveer Kishor Jain (Agra division teachers'), Omprakash Sharma (Meerut division teachers'), Sanjay Kumar Mishra (Bareilly-Moradabad division teachers') and Dhruv Kumar Tripathi (Gorakhpur-Faizabad division teachers').

The commission, in a statement, said that considering the unforeseen situation of public health emergency due to COVID-19 and the guidelines and orders passed under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, it had on April 3 passed an order and directed that the process of election to the seats be initiated at a later date.

The Model Code of Conduct concerning these elections has come into force with immediate effect in the constituencies concerned, the statement added.

A graduates' constituency is one in which only graduates from any recognised Indian university, or those with an equivalent qualification, can vote.

In a teachers' constituency, only a full-time teacher in at least a secondary school or higher is eligible to vote.

The notification of the polls will be issued on November 5, and the last date for making nominations is November 12. Scrutiny of nominations will be held on November 13, while November 17 is the last date for withdrawal of candidature. Polling will be held on December 1, and counting of votes will take place on December 3, the EC said.

In the 100-member UP Legislative Council, at present, Samajwadi Party has 52 MLCs, BJP has 19, BSP has eight, Congress two and Apna Dal (Sonelal) has one MLC. The Teachers' (shikshak dal) have one MLC, while there are three Independents. Fourteen seats are vacant.