What the MLC elections do and do not tell us

File photo of scarfs of different political parties kept on display inside a shop in Mumbai.

Discussions highlight too much emphasis being given to the recent elections to the Legislative Councils (MLC elections) across States. Even if a party swept the elections or got completely wiped out, it does not indicate that it is either losing or gaining the popular support of the people. This is because the voters in these elections are only a section of voters different from the general and Assembly elections being conducted. That is only a part of the electorate that decides an Assembly contest in a State with more than seven crore registered voters.

Across Uttar Pradesh, 11 constituencies went to polls while Bihar saw eight seats up for grabs, Maharashtra and Karnataka recorded five and four constituencies respectively went to polls.

MLC elections are held for the Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad), the Upper House of a State legislature, which exists in only six of the 28 States — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. A council can have no more than one-third of the Assembly’s strength and never fewer than 40 members. It is a permanent house that cannot be dissolved. Members serve six-year terms and one-third retire every two years, so elections are staggered rather than held all at once.

Members reach the Council by five routes. One-third are elected by MLAs, one-third by local bodies such as municipalities and district boards, one-twelfth by graduates and one-twelfth by teachers. The remaining one-sixth are nominated by the Governor from among people with distinguished work. Voting is by secret ballot under proportional representation by single transferable vote, in which voters rank candidates by preference and the count proceeds through a quota and transfers of surplus or eliminated votes.

Graduate and teacher constituencies are territorial, and the Election Commission conducts the polls. A graduate voter must have held a degree for at least three years, and a teacher must have taught for at least three years in a secondary school or higher institution. Both must live or work in the constituency, and neither is enrolled automatically, since each has to apply to be placed on a separate roll. This is why these electorates are so small. The Council has limited powers, it cannot vote on money bills, and the Assembly can override its recommendations on ordinary legislation. That is another reason these results say little about who governs the State.

Although these elections in no way display the impact on the party’s performance, but if we were to discuss the outcome for different political parties we need to understand it differently for each political party. It shows the organisational functioning of the party and organisational strength to some extent. Winning these seats means identifying candidates, registering voters months in advance and getting a small electorate to turn out. These are tasks of the party machine, not of a wave.

With the win from one seat in Nagpur, the Congress did manage to gain some headlines and open its tally. But it should be a lesson for the party as it failed to open its tally even in Karnataka, a State where it is in power. The BJP-JD(S) alliance swept all four seats there, and the Congress drew a blank. A ruling party is expected to have the state machinery, the cadre and the local connect to at least win a seat or two. Failing to do so suggests a gap between the government’s position in Bengaluru and the party’s organisational presence on the ground. Congress leaders may rightly say that the result is no verdict on the government. But a clean sweep where party is in power is something the leadership cannot wave away.

It is fair for the BJP to celebrate winning 14 out of the 28 seats which does reflect the strong organisational strength of the party across States. What can be seen as a setback for the party is that the graduate voters constituency has been BJP’s stronghold. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, according to the National Election Studies (NES) 2024 post-poll survey conducted by Lokniti-CSDS, BJP alone enjoyed 38% support from graduates and above, whereas it was 45% for NDA, higher than all other parties and alliances. A party that has long counted on the educated, urban voter will not be pleased to see that cushion thinning.

The loss in U.P. and particularly Varanasi should be a warning bell for the party as the State goes to polls next year while the defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections proved to be costly for the BJP at the national level. Varanasi is the Prime Minister’s own constituency, which makes the symbolism hard to ignore, even though the stakes are modest. In 2024, the BJP’s loss in Uttar Pradesh, which it had once swept, left it short of a majority on its own and dependent on allies. The party cannot afford a repeat in 2027, when the State goes to the polls, and any sign that the educated middle-class voter is drifting will worry its strategists. The party can point to wins elsewhere. But a defeat in Varanasi, in a seat held by its own camp, is the kind of result that sets off internal questions.

The party opening its tally in Bihar can be seen as its growing organisational strength in Bihar especially after the recent victory of its founder Prashant Kishor from a BJP-dominant seat. This comes after Mr. Kishor’s win in the Bankipur by-election in August, where he defeated the BJP’s Neeraj Kumar by 19,324 votes in a seat the BJP had never lost since 1995. Jan Suraaj had failed to win a single seat in the 2025 Assembly election. Two wins in three months, one in an Assembly bypoll and one in a council contest, show a party that is converting its campaigning into votes. Whether that carries over to a general election, where it must reach a far larger and more varied electorate, remains an open question.

On that count, the Congress has work to do, the BJP has reason to be careful, and Jan Suraaj has reason to feel encouraged.

The sensible reading of these results is a modest one and as a thumb rule in studying elections, we should not overread the data. Hence, these elections do not show the will of the entire voting bloc, but they do show the organisational functioning of the party and winning these elections mark an important move in increasing the morale of the party cadre, important for the functioning of any political party.

Sanjay Kumar is a Professor at CSDS and an election analyst; Arindam Kabir is currently working as a researcher with Sanjay Kumar at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). Views are personal.

election / politics / politics (general) / voting