With the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections now over, political parties are focusing on the legislative council elections.

Nominations for the legislative council elections to be held across 36 seats will start on March 15. The voting will be held on April 9 and the counting of votes will take place on April 12.

ALSO READ | BJP appoints Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh as observers for govt formation in UP, Uttarkhand

At present, the Samajwadi Party has a majority in the legislative council. The SP has 48 seats in the council, while the BJP has 36. However, eight MLCs from the SP have now moved to the BJP. At the same time, an MLC of BSP has also joined the BJP. After the results of the UP Assembly polls, the BJP is now eyeing a win against the Samajwadi party again in the MLC elections.

The elections will be held in two phases. Nominations for 30 seats in the first phase will be held from March 15 to 19. Scrutiny of the nomination papers for this phase will be held on March 21 and withdrawal of nominations will be allowed till March 23. Voting will take place on April 9.

In the second phase, elections will be held for six seats, whose nominations can be submitted till March 22. Investigations can be done till March 23 and names can be withdrawn by March 25. Voting will be held on April 9 and counting of votes will take place on April 12.

There are 35 seats in the legislative council under the local body quota in UP. In this, two representatives are elected from Etah, Mathura-Mainpuri seat, so 36 members are selected for 35 seats. Usually, these elections are held before or after the assembly session. This time, due to the end of the term on March 7, the Election Commission announced it in the middle of the assembly session. Later, the council elections were postponed in view of the UP Assembly elections.

At a recent meeting held at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s residence, the BJP decided on the names of the MLCs for the local body polls. According to sources, only a few of the MLCs from the Samajwadi Party will be given tickets; the rest will be BJP workers. The BJP is likely to field turncoats on about 10 seats. The full list of candidates is expected to be out by Wednesday.

On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party is reportedly prioritising new people instead of old faces. Sources said non-performing sitting MLCs could be removed by the Samajwadi Party and promising MLA candidates who lost by small margins could get tickets for the MLC polls. At present, the party does not want to take any risk now.

Party sources said that the Samajwadi Party could announce the names of the candidates by March 15 evening.