UP Election 2017 - Updates and Results

Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly Elections 2017

Assembly elections are due in Uttar Pradesh in early 2017. The final voting dates are expected to be announced by Election Commission of India by December, 2016. The Samajwadi Party (SP) government is set to complete its full term of five years in 2017. In the 2012 elections, the Samajwadi Party won by a comfortable majority of 224 seats while the BSP was reduced to 80 seats. The BJP and Congress got 47 and 28 seats respectively. The Uttar Pradesh state legislature consists of a total of 403 assembly seats.

The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are the two main political contenders in Uttar Pradesh. Besides, national political parties BJP and Congress also have important stakes in this politically significant state. Uttar Pradesh is the largest state in India in terms of population. It returns the largest number of seats to the Lok Sabha.

In the run-up to 2017 elections, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his government face the tough task of fending criticism and convincing voters to give them another chance. Opposition parties have slammed the Akhilesh government for breakdown of law and order in the state since the time it came to power. Akhilesh himself is often dismissed as a puppet chief minister and it is said that the real decisions are taken by his father, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, and his uncle Ram Gopal Yadav, who bear no accountability to the people. With less than a year left, the Akhilesh government is launching schemes and gifting sops in a last-ditch bid to woo voters and beat anti-incumbency blues.

Trying her best to ensure that this doesn't work, main opposition leader Mayawati and her party, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), have started preparations to win the mandate in 2017. The party has finalised candidates for almost all of the total 403 seats. It is understood that Muslims and upper-caste Hindus have been accorded priority in candidate selections. This has aggrieved many OBC and Dalit members of the party who contend that they are being sidelined by the party which was founded on the agenda of Dalit upliftment. The exit of many prominent faces from the party ahead of the crucial elections has been a cause for worry for the BSP and its president Mayawati.

Giving these two regional heavyweights a tough fight will be the national party BJP which has the advantage of being in power at the Centre. The Congress is also hoping to revive its fortunes in the forthcoming Assembly elections. It has appointed poll strategist Praveen Kishor to seek advice on how to bounce back from oblivion in the state. It has projected party veteran Sheila Dikshit, the three-time former chief minister of Delhi, as its chief-ministerial candidate for the state elections.

Needless to say, one should expect frenetic political activity in Uttar Pradesh as election day draws closer. While BSP, BJP and Congress will fight it out to win the voters' trust, the SP will face its own challenge of strong anti-incumbency sentiments.

About Uttar Pradesh Elections

The Indian National Congress has dominated the state's politics since independence. In the late nineties the rise of regional parties such as Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has challenged the traditional political base of the INC in the state. The BSP came to power in the state 2007 with an absolute majority. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also a major party in the state. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections the INC won 21 seats while the BSP won 20 and the SP won 23 seats. The BJP won 10 seats.

Some recent prominent politicians of the state are the former Chief Minister of the state, Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav of the SP , who has also served as the Defense Minister of the country and Shri Kanshi Ram , the founder of the Bahujan Samaj party. Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee, the 10th Prime Minister of India represented Lucknow, the capital of UP, in the Lok sabha Smt Sonia Gandhi, Shri Rahul Gandhi, , Dr Murali Manohar Joshi (BJP), Smt Menaka Gandhi are all Lok Sabha MPs from the state.

Uttar Pradesh Legislature

The state is one of the few in the country which has a bicameral legislature with two houses -the lower and the upper. The lower house is the Vidhan Sabha or the State Legislative Assembly and the Upper house is called the Vidhan Parishad or the Legislative council. The Vidhan Sabha had 431 members till 1967, but now the Vidhan Sabha consists of 403 directly elected members and one nominated member from the Anglo-Indian community. The Vidhan Parishad has 100 members.

Uttar Pradesh Political Parties

The main political parties in the state are
The Indian National Congress	The Bharatiya Janata party	The Bahujan Samaj Party
The Samajwadi Party	The Communist party of India	Rashtriya Lok Dal

Constituencies In Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh has 80 parliamentary constituencies out of which 17 are reserved for a candidate belonging to scheduled caste. Some of the parliamentary constituencies are Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar,Bijnor, Nagina, Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Amroha, Meerut, Baghpat, Gautam Budh Nagar, Mathura, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Ferozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Badaun, Aonla, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, Lucknow, Rai Bareli, Kannauj, Kanpur, Jhansi, and Allahabad. The state has 403 legislative assembly constituencies out of which 85 are reserved for a candidate belonging to scheduled caste. Some of the assembly constituencies are Behat, Nakur, Saharanpur, Deoband, Rampur Maniharan (SC), Gangoh, Kairana, Shamli, Budhana, Charthawal, Muzaffar Nagar, Khatauli, Najibabad, Nagina (SC), Dhampur, Nehtaur (SC), Bijnor, Thakurdwara, Gorakhpur Urban, Chauri-Chaura, Kushinagar, Asmoli, and Chandausi (SC).

State Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha)

The last Vidhan Sabha election was held in March 2012. The poll was held in seven phases. The total number of political parties- national, state and registered (unrecognized)- which participated in the Vidhan Sabha election was 222. The number of contestants in the fray was 6839. The number of electors was 127492836. The number of electors who voted was 75725793, which was 59.40% or the total number of electors.

The Bahujan samaj party won 80 seats, the BJP won 47 seats, the Nationalist Congress Party won 1 seat, the INC won 28, Rashtriya Lok Dal won 9 seats, and the Samajwadi Party won 224 seats. Samajwadi party formed the government with Shri Akhilesh Yadav as the Chief Minister.

The Speaker of the state legislative assembly is Shri Mata Prasad Pandey. The Leader of the Opposition is Shri Swami Prasad Maurya of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

State Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad)

The Vidhan Parishad is a permanent house of 100 members. The members are elected or nominated for six years and one sixth of them retire every two years. Out of the 100 Legislative Council members, 10 are nominated by the Governor. The rest are elected by various electoral colleges in the state such as those of the Vidhan Sabha members, local bodies, teachers and graduates.

Some of the current Vidhan Parishad members are Shri Parmeshwar Lal (BSP), Shri Jitendra Yadav(BSP), Shri R S Kushwaha(BSP), Shri Akshay Pratap Singh (SP), and Shri Dinesh Pratap Singh (INC).

Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election Results:

Cabinet Ministers of Uttar Pradesh

Ministries	Name of Minister
Chief Minister	Shri Akhilesh Yadav
Food and Civil Supplies	Shri Raghuraj Pratap Singh
Public Works Department, Irrigation, Co-operative, Flood Control, Land Development & Water Resources, Waste Land Development, Irrigation (Mechanical),Revenue, Disaster & Rehabilitation and Public Service Management	Shri Shivpal Singh Yadav
Medical & Health, Family Welfare, Women and Child Welfare	Shri Ahmad Hasan
Stamp and Court Fees, Registration, Civil Defence	Shri Raja Mahendra Aridaman Singh
Jail	Shri Balram Yadav
Social Welfare, SC & ST Welfare, Sainik Welfare	Shri Awadhesh Prasad
Tourism	Shri Om Prakash Singh
Child Development and Nutrition, Basic Education	Shri Ram Govind Chaudhary
Transport	Shri Durga Prasad Yadav
Homeguards, Prantiya Raksha Dal	Shri Brahma Shankar Tripathi
Minor Irrigation, Animal Husbandry	Shri Raj Kishor Singh
Textile and Sericulture Industries	Shri Shiv Kumar Beria
Horticulture and Food Rrocessing	Shri Paras Nath Yadav
Backward Class Welfare, Handicapped Welfare	Shri Ambika Chaudhari
Khadi and Village Industries	Shri Narad Rai
Panchayati Raj	Shri Kailash
Dairy Development	Shri Rammurti Verma
Parliamentary Affairs, Muslim Waqf, Urban Development, Water Supplies, Urban Employment & Poverty Alleviation, overall Urban Development, Minority Welfare & Haj	Mohd. Azam Khan
Political Pension	Shri Rajendra Choudhary
Science and Technology	Shri Manoj Kumar Pandey
Mining and Minerals	Shri Gayatri Prasad Prajapati
Technical Education	Shri Shivakant Ojha
Fishries, Public Enterprises	Shri Iqbal Mahmood
Secondary Education	Shri Mahboob Ali
Labour, Employment	Shri Shahid Manzoor

Rajya Sabha Members From Uttar Pradesh

Name	Party Name	Name	Party Name
Shri Mohammed Adeeb	IND & OTH	Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi	BJP
Shri Naresh Agrawal	SP	Shri Brajesh Pathak	BSP
Shri Munquad Ali	BSP	Smt. Kusum Rai	BJP
Shri Salim Ansari	BSP	Shri Amar Singh	SP
Smt. Jaya Bachchan	SP	Shri Rajaram	BSP
Prof. S.P.Singh Baghel	BSP	Shri Rajpal Singh Saini	BSP
Dr. Akhilesh Das Gupta	BSP	Chaudhary Munabbar Saleem	SP
Shri Jugul Kishore	BSP	Shri Kapil Sibal	INC
Shri Avtar Singh Karimpuri	BSP	Shri Arvind Kumar Singh	SP
Shri Narendra Kumar Kashyap	BSP	Shri Mohan Singh	SP
Shri Vinay Katiyar	BSP	Shri Veer Singh	BSP
Shri Brijlal Khabri	BSP	Shri Amar Singh	IND & OTH
Shri Rasheed Masood	INC	Shri Alok Tiwari	SP
Km. Mayawati	BSP	Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav	SP
Shri Satish Chandra Misra	BSP	Shri Darshan Singh Yadav	SP
Shri Kiranmay Nanda	SP

Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha Election Summary 2014

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made a victorious entry in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Out of the 80 parliamentary seats,71 seats are won by BJP,while Samjwadi Party (SP) managed to bag only five seats and only two seats are taken by Indian National Congress (INC). Being the fifth largest and the most populous state of the country, Uttar Pradesh (UP) contributes the major share in the total Lok Sabha seats. UP is always considered as the political hub in India, as it has given as many as eight Prime Ministers to the country. It has been an important political ground in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The 15th Lok Sabha elections in UP were held in 6 phases and decided the fate of prominent political leaders like Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Varun Gandhi, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav, from various political parties. Presently, the Samajwadi Party is ruling the government in with Akhilesh Yadav as its Chief Minister. The 2014 general elections in UP were held in six phases in UP which included high-profile Lok Sabha seats like Amethi, Varanasi, Rae Bareli, Pilibhit, Azamgarh etc. Amethi is the Congress- driven constituency since ages and the most awaited results were out declaring Rahul Gandhi as the winner from the seat. Finally the results for the Varanasi seat which witnessed the Modi versus Kejriwal battle, were also declared with Modi's historic victory in the state.

Uttar Pradesh, the country's fifth largest state in area, is the most populous in the country. The state has the largest number of members in the Indian parliament and so the election results in UP often decides the fate of the government at the center. As many as five Prime Ministers of the country have been from the state. It is for this reason a very important state with respect to Indian politics. The state is represented In the Indian Parliament by 80 directly elected members in the Lok Sabha and by 30 members in