Lucknow, Apr 19: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and 12 others were today declared elected unopposed to the state Legislative Council.
After the expiry of the deadline for withdrawal of names for the council polls this afternoon, Returning Officer and Vidhan Sabha Principal Secretary Pradeep Dubey announced the unopposed election of all the 13 candidates in the fray for the 13 Council seats to which elections were slated for April 26.
Akhilesh, who represents Kannauj seat in the Lok Sabha, had to enter the state Legislative Council or Assembly within six months of taking oath as chief minister.
The maximum number of eight candidates of the ruling Samajwadi Party followed by three of the BSP and one each of the BJP and Congress-RLD alliance were declared elected to the Upper House.
Besides Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Cabinet Minister Ambika Chaudhary, Madhu Gupta, Naresh Chand Uttam, Ram Sakal Gurjar, Vijay Yadav, Rajendra Chaudhary and Omer Ali Khan (all of the SP) were elected to the Legislative Council.
Thakur Jaiveer Singh, Sunil Kumar and Vijay Pratap of the BSP, Chaudhary Mushtaq of Cong-RLD and Mahendra Singh of the BJP were also among those elected to the Legislative Council.
Ambika Chaudhary, who is Revenue Minister in Akhilesh's Cabinet, contested Assembly elections from Phephna seat in Ballia district, but lost.
Omer Ali Khan, who is son-in-law of Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Maulana Ahmad Bukhari, too had contested Assembly election from Behat seat in Saharanpur, but he too lost.
