Months before the 2027 state assembly polls, the elections to 11 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council graduate and teachers’ constituency seats turned into a setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its strongholds of Varanasi and Lucknow, besides witnessing a close contest in Gorakhpur, even as the ruling party won six seats overall, while the Samajwadi Party got a shot in the arm as it bagged five seats.
The BJP won the Gorakhpur-Faizabad teachers’ seat in the region, considered chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s stronghold, by a narrow margin. The party had also hoped to use any gains to counter the Opposition narrative of dissatisfaction among the youth, the Ram temple donation theft controversy, upper caste anger over UGC guidelines, and Opposition accusations of manipulation in EVMs. Ballot papers were used in this election. However, the defeat of the party candidates in the strongholds of Varanasi, Lucknow, Jhansi, and the Agra region came as a cause for concern.
Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak said, “BJP workers reached out to voters across the state and have won seats. The BJP drew solace from its performance in west Uttar Pradesh, where the party retained the Meerut graduate and teachers’ seats, with its candidates Dinesh Kumar Goyal and Shrichand Sharma securing victories. The INDIA alliance uses false rhetoric when they get defeated. In his first public response to the results, Yadav struck a note of caution.
In the Meerut teachers’ constituency, Shrichand Sharma (BJP) won with a total of 18,099 votes. In the Meerut graduate constituency, the winner Dinesh Kumar Goyal secured 24,929 votes, according to an official press release from the office of the Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer. BJP is going to form the third consecutive government in the state with full majority (after the 2027 UP assembly polls.
Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said the BJP had largely repeated its previous performance but conceded that the party had hoped to win more seats. Samajwadi Party national president and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday congratulated party candidates and workers.
