Voting for both phases will take place on April 9, the state election office said. (Representational)
After fierce UP assembly polls, the BJP and its key rival Samajwadi Party will be pitted against each other again for the April 9 elections for the 36 seats of the state's legislative council.
The Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party have not fielded any candidate in the biennial legislative council polls, making it a straight fight between the SP and the BJP.
There are, however, some independent candidates in the fray.
The filing of nomination papers for the first phase of elections ended Monday while that for the second phase will end on Tuesday.
Voting for both phases will take place on April 9, the state election office said.
The counting of votes will take place on April 12.
The Samajwadi Party will make all efforts to retain its majority in the 100-member Upper House while the BJP will go all out to have its majority in the legislative council too.
The BJP announced the names of six more candidates on Monday for the elections, for which the party had announced 30 candidates earlier.
Amid the poll process, the BJP's ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) refuted speculation that it too wanted to contest the poll, for which it was in talks with the BJP.
"We are not contesting the biennial elections for the legislative council in UP," Apna Dal (S) MLC Ashish Patel told PTI.
Of the 36 candidates fielded by the BJP, five are former Samajwadi Party leaders, who joined the saffron camp on the eve of the February-March state polls.
They are -- Shailendra Pratap Singh from Sultanpur local authority constituency, C P Chand from the Gorakhpur-Maharajganj local authorities, Ravishankar Singh 'Pappu' from Ballia local authorities, Rama Niranjan from Jhansi-Jalaun-Lalitpur local authorities and Narendra Bhati from Bulandshahr local authorities.
Ravishankar Singh Pappu is the grandson of former Prime Minister Chandrasekhar.
Samajwadi Party had declared its candidates for the biennial elections to the UP Legislative Council on Sunday.
Barring the Meerut-Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr seats, which have been left for its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal, the SP has declared its candidates on all the remaining 34 seats, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said.
Among those given tickets included Dr Kafeel Khan from Deoria, Mashkoor Ahmad from Rampur-Bareilly, sitting MLCs Sunil Kumar Sajan, Rajesh Kumar and Udayveer Singh from Lucknow-Unnao, Barabaki, and Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri seats respectively.
Congress MLC Deepak Singh on Monday told PTI, "The Congress party has decided not to field any candidate in the UP Legislative Council polls. We will now fight an election, only to win. We are reviewing the performance of the party (in the recently-concluded UP Assembly elections)." Sources in the BSP too said, "The BSP is not fielding any candidate in the polls.” According to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of UP, as many as 139 candidates have filed their nomination papers for the first phase.
March 21 is the last date for filing nomination papers for the first phase.
For the second phase, nine candidates have filed their nomination papers so far. The last date fo5r it is March 22.
According to the official website of the UP Legislative Council, the BJP has 35 MLCs, SP 17 and the BSP four at present in the 100-member UP legislative council.
The Congress, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad party have one member each at present.
The Teachers' group has two MLCs while the "Independent Group" ('Nirdal Samooh') and independents have one MLC each.
The UP Vidhan Parishad's 36 seats fell vacant on March 7 after the expiry of terms of its members while the 37th seat fell vacant following the death of the Leader of Opposition Ahmad Hassan of the Samajwadi Party, after a prolonged illness.
In the recent UP assembly elections, the BJP had won 255 seats while its allies Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad party won 12 and six seats respectively.
The Samajwadi Party won 111 seats while its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal won eight. The SBSP, another SP ally, won six seats.
The Congress won two seats and the BSP one seat.
The elections for 36 vacant seats will be held for 35 local bodies. Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri local authorities constituency has two seats for which separate polls will be held.
The voters in this election are village pradhans, members and chairman of block development councils, members and chairman of zila panchayat, corporators in urban areas. Apart from this, MLAs and MPs are also voters.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)