Schedule for UP Legislative Council polls announced

The office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh on Friday announced the schedule for the biennial election of 36 members of the UP Legislative Council from 35 local authorities.

The term of the current council members ends on March 7.

In a statement issued here, UP Chief Electoral Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said that two members will be elected from the Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri local authority.

In the first phase, 29 seats and in the second phase, six seats will go to polls.

The notification for the first phase will be issued on February 4, while February 11 is the last date of filing nominations. Scrutiny of nominations will be held on February 14 and February 16 is the last date to withdraw candidature. Voting will be held on March 3 from 8 am to 4 pm.

The seats going to polls in the first phase are local authorities of Moradabad-Bijnor, Rampur-Bareilly, Budaun, Pilibhit-Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Kheri, Lucknow-Unnao, Raebareli, Pratapgarh, Sultanpur, Barabanki, Bahraich, Azamgarh-Mau, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Varanasi, Mirzapur-Sonbhadra, Allahabad, Banda-Hamirpur, Jhansi-Jalaun-Lalitpur, Kanpur-Fatehpur, Etawah-Farrukhabad, Agra-Firozabad, Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri, Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Meerut-Ghaziabad and Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur.

The seats going in the second phase are local authorities of Gonda, Faizabad, Basti-Siddharthanagar, Gorakhpur-Maharajganj, Deoria and Ballia.

The notification for the second phase will be issued on February 10, while February 17 is the last date to file nominations. Scrutiny of nominations will be held on February 18 and February 21 is the last date to withdraw candidature.

Voting will be held on March 7 from 8 am to 4 pm, and counting of votes will be held on March 12, the statement said.