TNNLucknow: BJP retained three UP Legislative Council seats, including both constituencies in Meerut and the Bareilly-Moradabad Teachers’ seat, while the Samajwadi Party held the Varanasi Teachers’ constituency as counting for 11 MLC seats continued late Tuesday.In the Meerut-Saharanpur Graduates’ constituency, BJP’s Dinesh Goyal retained his seat, defeating SP’s Pramod Singh Bhati by 12,855 votes. BJP’s Shrichand Sharma also retained the Meerut Teachers’ constituency, defeating SP’s Nitin Tomar by 13,241 votes.BJP’s Hari Singh Dhillon retained the Bareilly-Moradabad Teachers’ constituency, defeating SP’s Haji Mohammad Danish Akhtar. UP BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary congratulated all three BJP winners through separate posts on X.Meanwhile, SP MLC Lal Bihari Yadav retained the Varanasi Teachers’ constituency, defeating BJP’s Pramod Mishra by around 4,900 votes.In the Lucknow Teachers’ constituency, BJP’s sitting MLC Umesh Dwivedi was leading SP’s Sushil Kumar (Baba) by 3,652 votes after 14 rounds. Dwivedi secured 7,189 votes against Kumar’s 3,537. Of the 13,972 votes counted, 936 were declared invalid.In the Gorakhpur-Faizabad Teachers’ constituency, BJP’s Dhruv Tripathi maintained a slender lead of 110 votes, with independent Rajeev Yadav and SP’s Sanjayan also in contention.In Agra, SP candidate Akash Agrawal, who won the Teachers’ seat as an Independent in 2020, was leading BJP’s Hari Kishore Tiwari by 3,000 votes. A victory would mean retaining the constituency while bringing it into the SP fold.Polling for five Graduates’ and six Teachers’ constituencies was held on Oct23, with 152 candidates in the fray. Repolling at three Agra polling stations took place on Monday. Final results from the remaining constituencies were awaited.
