MLC Election Results 2026 Explained: 28 Council Seats in UP, Bihar, Karnataka and Maharashtra — Winners So Far and Seats Still Being Counted
Key Takeaways
- Votes for 28 Legislative Council seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Maharashtra were counted on 27 October 2026, after polling on 23 October.
- Karnataka's BJP–JD(S) alliance won the Bengaluru Teachers' and North-East Teachers' seats; the BJP's S. V. Sankanur was leading in West Graduates'.
- In Bihar, the BJP won Tirhut Teachers' and Darbhanga Graduates', while a BJP rebel won Saran Teachers' and Jan Suraaj won Darbhanga Teachers'.
- In Uttar Pradesh, early trends put the BJP ahead in four to five of 11 seats and the Samajwadi Party ahead in three, with several seats still counting.
- Graduates' and teachers' MLCs are elected by paper ballot under the single transferable vote system, which is why close seats take hours to declare.
Counting of votes began at 8 am on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, for 28 seats in the Legislative Councils of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Voting for these seats had been held on 23 October. These are biennial elections — held when sitting members' terms end — for seats reserved for graduates' and teachers' constituencies, a type of election in which ordinary voters do not take part.
By late on 27 October, several winners had been declared in Bihar and Karnataka, while counting in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra ran on into the night. Some seats took longer than others because these elections are counted by hand, preference by preference, and close contests can go to second- and third-preference rounds. This article reflects results reported up to the early hours of 28 October 2026. Where a candidate is described as "leading", the seat had not been formally declared at that point.
What was being elected
India has Legislative Councils — upper houses of the state legislature — in only six states. Members of the Legislative Council (MLCs) serve six-year terms, with one-third of members retiring every two years, which is why these elections are called biennial elections.
Graduates' constituencies are elected by voters who hold a university degree and have registered separately on the graduates' electoral roll. Teachers' constituencies are elected by full-time teachers with at least three years' standing in recognised institutions. That narrow, specialised electorate is why turnout patterns look so different from assembly elections: in Bihar, for example, teachers turned out at 82.85 per cent while graduates turned out at 53.42 per cent.
These elections do not use electronic voting machines. Voters mark paper ballots in order of preference, and counting follows the single transferable vote system. First-preference votes are counted first; if no candidate reaches the required quota, the lowest candidate is eliminated and their votes are transferred to the next preference marked on each ballot. The process repeats until a winner emerges — which is why a seat with many candidates, or a small margin, can take many hours to declare.
The 28 seats were divided as follows: 11 in Uttar Pradesh (five graduates' and six teachers' seats), eight in Bihar (four graduates' and four teachers' seats), four in Karnataka and five in Maharashtra.
Karnataka: NDA takes the early honours
Karnataka counted votes for four seats, with 43 candidates in the fray across 17 districts. The main contest was between the ruling Congress and the BJP–Janata Dal (Secular) alliance.
The clearest result of the night came from the Bengaluru Teachers' constituency, where JD(S) candidate A. P. Ranganath defeated Congress nominee Puttanna — a five-time MLC — by 908 votes, polling 10,810 votes. The JD(S)–BJP alliance also won the North-East Teachers' constituency, where the BJP's Shashil G. Namoshi was its candidate.
In the West Graduates' constituency, the BJP's S. V. Sankanur was leading Congress candidate Mohan Limbikai by 3,556 votes after the second round of counting, with 12,613 votes against Limbikai's 9,057. Counting there was expected to continue until around 2 am, so that lead was not yet a declared win. In the South-East Graduates' constituency, the BJP's K. M. Suresh was also leading, with the final result still to be confirmed.
Turnout in Karnataka was high by graduates'-seat standards: 73.58 per cent in South-East Graduates', 75.62 per cent in West Graduates', 86.97 per cent in North-East Teachers' and 81.98 per cent in Bengaluru Teachers'. The result was watched closely because Karnataka has just completed a Special Intensive Revision of its voter rolls, with the final roll listing 4.55 crore electors.
Bihar: BJP wins, but rebels and Jan Suraaj strike
Bihar counted votes for eight seats: the Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Kosi graduates' seats, and the Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Saran teachers' seats. Constituency turnout figures underline the gap between the two electorates. Among graduates, Patna recorded 59.56 per cent, Darbhanga 54.73 per cent, Kosi 54.73 per cent and Tirhut 48.51 per cent. Among teachers, Saran recorded 89.05 per cent, Darbhanga 85.87 per cent, Tirhut 82.99 per cent and Patna 74.75 per cent.
The BJP won the Tirhut Teachers' seat, where Narendra Prasad Singh defeated CPI candidate Sanjay Kumar Singh by more than 600 votes. The BJP also won the Darbhanga Graduates' seat, where Sarvesh Kumar defeated RJD-backed candidate Anil Jha by 237 votes after all 6,998 votes were counted.
Two results cut against the established parties. In the Saran Teachers' constituency, independent candidate Rahul Raj — a BJP rebel — defeated the NDA candidate Anand Pushkar by more than 800 votes after the counting of second-preference votes. In the Darbhanga Teachers' constituency, Jan Suraaj candidate Suresh Prasad Rai defeated Congress candidate Madan Mohan Jha by 324 votes, giving Prashant Kishor's party a foothold in the council.
Other Bihar seats were still being counted late into the night. In the Kosi Graduates' constituency, the BJP's N. K. Yadav was leading after four rounds with 9,464 votes, ahead of the RJD's Nitesh Yadav on 6,212 and Jan Suraaj's Rajneesh Ranjan on 6,209. In the Patna Graduates' constituency, JD(U) candidate Neeraj Kumar led the first-preference count with 2,708 votes against the RJD's Dilip Patel on 1,811 and Jan Suraaj's Anuj Singh on 671. Anuj Singh was backed by Mokama MLA Anant Singh, who was expelled from the JD(U) and campaigned against his former party's candidate. The Patna Teachers' seat saw the lead change hands during counting, and its final result was still awaited.
Counting in Bihar was not entirely smooth. Supporters of BJP and RJD candidates clashed inside the Patna counting hall after a dispute over a ballot paper, and a commotion broke out outside the Bankipur counting centre between Jan Suraaj workers and staff. The RJD raised counting concerns with the Chief Electoral Officer, and the Congress staged a sit-in, according to live reports.
Uttar Pradesh: BJP ahead in early trends, SP fights back in Varanasi
Uttar Pradesh, with 11 seats, was the largest part of this election: 152 candidates, 14,81,310 registered voters, 2,697 polling stations across 72 districts. Kanpur Nagar, Kanpur Dehat and Unnao were excluded from this round. The main contest was between the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP).
Early trends reported during counting put the BJP ahead in four to five seats, the SP ahead in three and independents or others in one — but these were trends, not declared results, and the preference-counting system means early leads can change.
Seat by seat, the early picture was: BJP's Dinesh Goyal leading in Meerut Graduates'; BJP's Shri Chand Sharma leading in Meerut Teachers' with 9,043 votes against the SP's Nitin Tomar on 2,782; BJP's Umesh Dwivedi leading in Lucknow Teachers'; BJP's Hari Singh Dhillon leading in Bareilly-Moradabad Teachers' by 4,435 votes; and BJP's Dhruv Tripathi holding a narrow 110-vote lead in Gorakhpur-Faizabad Teachers'. The SP was leading in both Varanasi seats — Ashutosh Sinha in Varanasi Graduates' and incumbent MLC Lal Bihari Yadav in Varanasi Teachers' against the BJP's Pramod Mishra — while the SP's Akash Agarwal was in contention in Agra Teachers' after the initial rounds.
The Election Commission had already acted before counting day over lapses in the Agra Teachers' constituency, suspending six supervisory officers and starting disciplinary proceedings against five presiding officers and 16 police personnel. The UP outcome is being watched ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, as a test of the BJP's and SP's organisational strength among graduate and teacher voters.
Maharashtra: five seats, high teacher turnout, and a voter-roll row
Maharashtra counted votes for five seats: Nagpur Graduates', Pune Graduates', Pune Teachers', Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Graduates' and Amravati Teachers'. Turnout again showed the teachers–graduates gap: Nagpur Graduates' recorded 64.82 per cent and Pune Graduates' 62.76 per cent, while Pune Teachers' recorded 85.86 per cent and Amravati Teachers' 92.25 per cent.
The Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Graduates' seat was one of the most closely watched, with three-time sitting MLC Satish Chavan fielded by the Mahayuti alliance under the NCP banner, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi fielded two candidates against him — the Sharad Pawar-led NCP's Pratap Singh Patil and the Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Dilip Ghorge.
The Maharashtra round was also marked by a voter-roll controversy. Congress leaders alleged duplicate entries in the Nagpur Graduates' constituency and claimed that around 20,000 to 22,000 voter registrations were processed using a single mobile number. Election authorities responded by requiring voters with duplicate listings to submit a written declaration confirming they were voting at only one designated location, and Congress demanded a formal inquiry. These were allegations made during the election, not findings by the Election Commission. The detailed winner list for Maharashtra's five seats was still emerging in news reports in the early hours of 28 October.
Why these results matter
Legislative Council elections do not change governments, but they are read closely as a measure of party organisation among influential voter groups — graduates and teachers — and of alliance discipline. In Bihar, Jan Suraaj's wins and a BJP rebel's victory in Saran point to churn inside both camps. In Karnataka, early NDA gains came in a state ruled by the Congress. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP–SP contest is a rehearsal for the 2027 assembly election.
The results also show how differently the two electorates behave: teachers vote in very large numbers, while graduates — despite being registered voters — turn out in far smaller proportions, which makes graduates' seats harder to predict and often slower to count.
What happens next
The remaining seats will be formally declared by the returning officers, and the Election Commission's final results will follow. Winners will take their seats in their respective Legislative Councils for six-year terms. Because several seats were still being counted when this article was written, readers should treat the leads reported here as provisional and check the Election Commission of India or the state Chief Electoral Officers' announcements for the final, gazetted results.