Election Commission issues notification for biennial elections to 12 UP legislative council seats

By PTI
LUCKNOW: The Election Commission of India on Monday issued a notification for the biennial election to 12 legislative council seats in Uttar Pradesh, which will fall vacant later this month.

The MLCs whose terms are ending include UP Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, Chairman of UP Legislative Council Ramesh Yadav, and UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh.

The 12 seats in the UP legislative council will get vacant on January 30 as the term of the members is coming to an end, UP’s Chief Electoral Officer A K Shukla said.

Polling will be held on January 28 and counting of votes will be done one hour after the completion of polls as per established practice.

Nominations for the biennial polls can be filed till January 18 and scrutiny of the same will be held on January 19.

The withdrawal of names can be done till January 21.

Of the 12 MLCs whose tenure is expiring, six are from the Samajwadi Party (SP)–Ramesh Yadav, Ahmed Hasan, Ashu Malik, Sahab Singh Saini, Ramjatan Rajbhar and Virendra Singh.

Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, UP party chief Swatantra Dev Singh and Laxman Acharya are from the BJP.

The tenure of BSP’s Pradeep Jatav and Dharamveer Ashok is also coming to an end.

The term of Naseemudin Siddiqui, who left the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and joined the Congress, is also coming to an end.

The poll panel had earlier issued guidelines to be followed during the entire election process.

These guidelines state that every person shall wear a face mask during all election-related activities.

At the entry of hall/room/premises used for election purposes, thermal scanning of all persons shall be carried out, and sanitiser made available at all locations.

Social distancing shall be maintained as per the extant COVID-19 guidelines of the state government and the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh has been directed to depute a senior officer from the state to ensure that the extant instructions regarding COVID-19 containment measures are complied with while making arrangements for conducting the election, the Election Commission added.