Lucknow/Bengaluru: The Congress party failed to win any seats across the four states in which Member of Legislative Council (MLC) polls were held.
The MLC polls to six teachers' and five graduates' constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, four each in Bihar, two each in Karnataka, and three graduates' and two teachers' constituencies in Maharashtra were held on October 23.
Only graduate and teacher voters are eligible to participate in these elections. Ballot papers, rather than electronic voting machines, are used for polling.
In Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party's (SP's) Mansingh Yadav was declared elected from the Allahabad-Jhansi Graduates' constituency.
The BJP's Manvendra Pratap Singh (Guruji) won the Agra Graduates' constituency. The party also retained the Bareilly-Moradabad Teachers' seat, with its candidate Hari Singh Dhillon defeating SP nominee Danish Akhtar by 17,676 votes.
The BJP also won the Lucknow Teachers' constituency, where its candidate Umesh Dwivedi defeated SP's Sushil Kumar by 6,992 votes.
In Meerut, the BJP won both the Teachers' and Graduates' constituencies.
In the Gorakhpur-Faizabad division Teachers' constituency, BJP's Dhruv Kumar Tripathi was leading with 466 votes over his rival, Independent candidate Rajiv Yadav, after the final round of counting.
The Varanasi Teachers' constituency was won by Samajwadi Party's Lal Bihari Yadav.
In the Agra-Aligarh Teachers' constituency, SP candidate Akash Agrawal defeated BJP nominee Hari Kishore Tiwari.
SP candidates were leading in Varanasi and Lucknow Graduates' constituencies.
The MLC polls are being seen as a prestige battle between the ruling BJP and the opposition SP ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
In Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led ruling Mahayuti was leading in three seats while the Opposition Nationalist Congress Party - Sharadchandra Pawar [NCP (SP)] was ahead in two seats.
BJP candidate Sudhakar Kohale was leading by a margin of 4,265 votes in Nagpur Graduates' constituency in Maharashtra and Shiv Sena's Kiran Sarnaik was ahead of his nearest rival by 4,555 votes in the Amravati Teachers' constituency after 21 rounds of counting.
In the Amravati Teachers' constituency, Sarnaik so far secured 10,672 votes. Congress candidate Aditi Pohre was in second place with 6,117 votes.
In Pune Teachers' constituency, BJP candidate Kaustubh Gawade was leading over rivals after the 28th round of counting.
In the Pune Graduates' constituency, NCP (SP) candidate Harshada Deshmukh-Jadhav looked set to win.
In the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) Graduates' constituency, NCP (SP) candidate Pratapsinh Patil was leading over NCP's sitting MLC Satish Chavan.
The Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) opened its account in Bihar, where the BJP, the Janata Dal (United) [JD(U)], the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and an Independent have won one seat each.
Jan Suraaj Party's Suresh Prasad Rai defeated sitting Congress MLC Madan Mohan Jha by 324 votes in the Darbhanga Teachers seat in Bihar.
BJP candidate Narendra Prasad Singh had on Tuesday trounced his nearest rival, independent nominee Bhushan Kumar Jha, to win the Tirhut Teachers' constituency.
In the Patna Graduates constituency, JD(U)’s Neeraj Kumar has defeated the RJD candidate, though official results for the seat are yet to be declared.
BJP sitting MLC from Patna Teachers seat, Nawal Kishor Yadav, has lost to RJD’s Sanjiv Kumar, sources said.
In the Saran Teachers constituency, sitting MLC Afaq Ahmed was defeated by independent candidate Rahul Raj, they said.
The Congress suffered a setback in Karnataka, losing in all the four seats with the opposition Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)] wresting one segment from the ruling party and its ally BJP retaining three.
The JD(S) wrested the Bengaluru Teachers' Constituency from Congress. The BJP registered victory in North-East Teachers', South-East Graduates' and West Graduates' constituencies, defeating the Congress candidates.
Although the outcome will not impact the Congress government's stability, it is being seen as a result of BJP-JD(S) opposition consolidation and serves as a moral victory for the bloc.
(With inputs from PTI)