The Election commission of India has announced the poll schedule for the election to 35 seats of the UP legislative council, the upper house of the state legislature, from the local body’s constituency. The total strength of the legislative council is 100 members.
With the announcement of the poll schedule the model code of conduct has come into force with immediate effect in all the districts where the election will be held.
As per the schedule announced on Friday the poll notification will be issued on February 8 and last date for filing the nomination papers is February 15. The scrutiny of papers will be held on February 16 and the last date for the withdrawal of papers is February 18. The polling will be held on March 3 and the counting of votes will be held on March 6. The additional chief electoral officer Ramakant Pandey said the election process will be completed by March 9.
All the elected members of the three tier panchyats –village prdhan, village council members, block development committee members, block pramukh, member of district panchyat and chairman of district panchyat and the elected members of the urban local bodies constitute the electoral college for the election of members of the legislative council from the local bodies constituency.
The local bodies constituencies where the election will be held are Moradabad-Bijnor, Rampur-Bareilly, Badaun, Pilibhit-shahjahanpur, Hardoi, lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, lucknow0Unnao, Raibareli, Prtapgarh, Sultanpur, Bahriach, Barabanki, Gonda, Faizabad, Basti-Siddarthnagar, Gorakhpur-Maharajganj, Deoria, Azamgarh0Mau, Ballia, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Varanasi, Mirzapur-Sonbhadra, Allahabad, Jhansi-Jalaun-lalitpur, Kanpur-Fatehpur, Etawah-Farrukhabad, Agra-Ferozabad, Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri, Aligarh, Bulandsahar, Meerut-Ghazaibad and Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur..
These elections are crucial for the ruling Samajwadi Party and it will do its best to win maximum number of seat from thi8s constituency. After completing nearly four years in office the ruling Samajwadi Party attained majority in the upper house of the UP legislature on January 15. The ruling party got the majority in the legislative council with the retirement of the 35 members of the main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party. These members were elected from the local body’s constituency of the Council.
Along with attaining the majority in the upper house the Samajwadi Party is also likely to have its candidate as Chairman of the legislative council. With the retirement of the incumbent chairman Ganesh Shankar Pandey on January 15, Om Prakash Sharma is the pro tem chairman. With the retirement of the 35members of the BSP, the effective strength of the SP is now 27, 14 of the opposition BSP, BJP-7, Congress 1 Rashtriya lok Dal 1 and one from graduate constituency and 14 from the teacher’s constituency. The strength of the ruling party is likely to swell further with the election to 35 seats of the local body’s constituency.