Notification for polls to 11 UP Legislative Council seats to be issued on Nov 5

Lucknow, Nov 4: The notification for the biennial election to 11 seats of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council -- five Graduates' and six Teachers' constituencies -- will be issued on November 5, the chief electoral officer said on Wednesday.

The Election Commission had on Monday announced that the polls in these constituencies will be held on December 1 and the counting of votes will be taken up on December 3.

Chief Electoral Officer of UP Ajay Kumar Shukla on Wednesday said the notification for the polls will be issued on November 5. The last date for filing nominations is November 12. The scrutiny of nomination papers will be taken up on November 13 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is November 17, he said. The term of office of 11 MLCs expired on May 6, according to the EC.

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').

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