In a severe jolt to trouble-ridden Samajwadi Party (SP), the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) today swept the biennial elections to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, winning 31 of the 36 seats for which polls were held and securing majority in the Upper House.
SP, which had failed to open its account in the November assembly by-elections in the state, managed just one seat this time. It had held 22 of the seats that went to polls on January 7.
Another seat, Rae Bareli, represented in the Lok Sabha by Sonia Gandhi, went to her Congress party.
But Congress suffered a major embarrassment in the bastion of its youth leader Rahul Gandhi, as BSP won from Sultanpur-Amethi seat. The Congress candidate was relegated to the fourth position there.
It was all gain for Mayawati's party which did not hold any of the seats that went to polls last week. BSP will now have 53 MLCs in the 100-member House.
While counting was completed in 33 seats today, in three other seats, it will be taken up tomorrow as per an Election Commission directive.
Samajwadi Party's drubbing in the Council polls came barely two months after it failed to retain the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat in a by-election in November.
The party could not even win any of the 11 assembly seats in the state where by-elections were held simultaneously.
While SP yielded Firozabad to Congress; in the assembly by-polls, BSP won nine, wresting four from SP.
Of the seats that went to polls, SP held 22, BJP 6, RLD 2 and Congress and SJP one each. Four seats were vacant.
