Voting for 5 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council seats held

Lucknow, Jan 30 (PTI) Voting for five Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council seats -- three graduates and two teachers constituencies -- concluded peacefully on Monday, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer said here.

There were 63 candidates in the fray from the five seats. Forty-four candidates were for the three graduates constituencies and 19 for the two teachers constituencies.

Polling for the biennial election in 39 districts of the state began at 8 am and ended at 4 pm.

The counting of votes will be taken up on February 2, the election office said.

Counting will be held in Bareilly, Jhansi, Gorakhpur and Kanpur.

The turnout was 43.19 per cent in Gorakhpur-Faizabad Division Graduates constituency, 40.93 per cent in Kanpur Division Graduates constituency, 53.72 per cent in Bareilly-Moradabad Division Graduates constituency, 75.86 per cent in Allahabad-Jhansi Division Teachers constituency and 68.93 per cent in Kanpur Division Teachers constituency.

In total, 6.32 lakh people -- 3.93 lakh men and 2.39 lakh women -- were eligible to vote in the three graduates constituencies. Voting was held at 826 polling booths for this category.

As many as 5,392 people -- 3,505 men and 1,887 women -- were eligible to cast their votes in two teachers constituencies. Voting was held at 238 polling booths for this category.

One observer each was deployed in every constituency by the Election Commission. Besides them, 594 sector magistrates and 234 zonal magistrates were deployed.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer Ratnesh Singh said the polling was held as the tenure of elected members of three graduates constituencies -- Devendra Pratap Singh from Gorakhpur-Faizabad, Arun Pathak from Kanpur and Dr. Jai Pal Singh from Bareilly-Moradabad -- and two teachers constituencies -- Suresh Kumar Tripathi from Jhansi and Rajbahadur Singh Chandel from Kanpur -- ends on February 12. PTI SAB NAV SMN