By IANS,
Lucknow : The counting of votes for 36 seats in the biennial election to Uttar Pradesh legislative council has been postponed and will now take place Jan 13, an official said Friday.
“Earlier the counting was scheduled for Jan 9, but following the directions of the Election Commission (EC), it will take place Jan 13,” a government spokesman said.
Claiming there have been “no ambiguities in the electoral rolls”, the official said the change in the counting schedule has been effected following the EC’s instructions in view of “some clarification sought from the Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow Bench pertaining to voting rights”.
Polling to elect 36 representatives from 35 local authority constituencies passed off Thursday with around 95 percent of the electorate exercising their franchise.
As many as 193 candidates were in the fray with the maximum of eight candidates for the Allahabad seat while Badaun, Hardoi, Azamgarh, Ballia, Varanasi and Jhansi constituencies have three candidates each.
Among the main political parties, the state’s ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is contesting all the 36 seats while the main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) is contesting 32, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 23 and the Congress 21.