Vote counting began at 8 am on Tuesday for 28 Legislative Council seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka, according to Hindustan Times. Polling for these seats was held on October 23, and the Election Commission of India is expected to formally declare the results by Tuesday evening. The elections cover graduates' and teachers' constituencies in all four states, and early rounds of counting have already produced leads in several of them.
Why it matters
Legislative Council seats are not decided by the general electorate but by graduates and teachers drawn from defined constituencies, which makes these contests a narrower but closely watched test of party strength. The four states involved account for a substantial share of the national political map, and the outcomes will be read as signals of standing for the ruling BJP, the Samajwadi Party, the Congress, the RJD and newer outfits such as Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj. The counting has also drawn attention to procedural questions, with opposition parties raising objections about transparency in at least two states.
Early trends from Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh is counting votes for 11 seats, with 152 candidates in the field. The state's exercise spans five graduates' and six teachers' constituencies, covering 14,81,310 registered voters across 2,697 polling stations in 72 districts. Kanpur Nagar, Kanpur Dehat and Unnao were left out of the exercise, according to Hindustan Times.
In the Varanasi Graduates' constituency, initial trends showed Samajwadi Party candidate Ashutosh Sinha ahead. In the Varanasi Teachers' constituency, sitting MLC Lal Bihari Yadav of the SP was leading BJP candidate Pramod Mishra after the first round, which covered 1,000 votes each across 14 tables.
After two rounds in the Varanasi Teachers' seat, Yadav had secured 10,958 first-preference votes while Mishra had 6,060, a gap of 4,898. Of the ballots handled, 22,943 were valid and 1,441 were declared invalid. The SP candidate subsequently claimed victory in the constituency.
In the Agra Graduates' seat, BJP candidate Dr Manvendra Pratap Singh led by 459 votes after the second round, with 11,198 votes against SP candidate Shashank Yadav Situ's 10,739.
The main contest in the state is between the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party, alongside independent candidates and party rebels. Hindustan Times also reported that the Election Commission on Monday ordered the immediate suspension of six supervisory officers and disciplinary proceedings against five presiding officers and 16 police personnel over lapses during the Agra teachers' constituency election.
Disputes over counting in Lucknow
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav accused the administration of delaying the count in the Lucknow Division MLC election, asking why no round-by-round updates had been released by evening. In a post on X, he also pointed to a video that he said showed BJP workers causing a disturbance at the counting centre, and questioned whether the Election Commission and the administration were taking note. He called for transparency and criticised the delay in releasing figures.
The Samajwadi Party separately alleged that BJP supporters and unauthorised people were being admitted to the counting centre for the Lucknow Division seat and said they were being allowed in to influence the process. The party said no action had been taken on its complaints and asked the Election Commission to step in. The Times of India reported that SP and BJP workers clashed outside the counting centre in Lucknow.
Bihar: Jan Suraaj opens its account
In Bihar, counting is under way for eight seats — four graduates' and four teachers' constituencies. These are the graduates' seats of Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Kosi, and the teachers' seats of Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Saran.
In the Darbhanga Teachers' constituency, Jan Suraaj candidate Suresh Prasad Rai led after three rounds with 2,574 votes, a margin of 387 over Congress candidate Madan Mohan Jha, who had 2,187. BJP candidate Ramdev Rai was third with 1,498 votes.
In the Tirhut Teachers' seat, BJP candidate Narendra Prasad Singh led a three-way contest by 159 votes over CPI's Sanjay Kumar Singh, with independent Bhushan Jha close behind. Singh had 1,872 votes and Sanjay Kumar Singh 1,713, while Jan Suraaj's Shyamnandan Kumar Yadav was third with 1,335.
NDTV reported that Jan Suraaj, the party led by Prashant Kishor, won its first seat in the Bihar Upper House. Before counting began, a delegation of RJD leaders submitted a detailed memorandum to the state election office seeking safeguards against possible irregularities, according to Hindustan Times. The Hindu reported that RJD MP Sanjay Yadav wrote to the Election Commission asking for transparent counting.
Maharashtra and Karnataka
Maharashtra has 182 candidates contesting five seats: the graduates' constituencies of Pune, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, and the teachers' constituencies of Pune and Amravati.
In Nagpur, Congress candidate Abhijit Wanjari moved ahead of BJP's Sudhakar Kohale by 927 votes after initially trailing, with 28,998 votes to Kohale's 28,071. The two together accounted for 57,069 of the 76,875 votes counted. On those figures, the MVA was leading in three constituencies and the Mahayuti in two.
Karnataka is counting for four seats covering 17 districts, with the Congress pitted against the BJP-JD(S) NDA alliance. The Bengaluru and North-East Teachers' constituencies and the West and South-East Graduates' seats are among those drawing particular attention.
The picture across the four states is expected to sharpen as later rounds are counted, with the Election Commission's formal declarations due later on Tuesday.
