State election commission of Uttar Pradesh declared that 349 candidates were elected unopposed for the block chairman posts. Block level election forms an important segment at local level of elections in India.

Meanwhile, BJP has claimed that as many as 334 candidates supported by the party have won without polling. As the counting continued, BJP and its allies reportedly won 635 seats out of 825. Various reports suggested that candidates supported by BJP have won all 8 seats in Lucknow and Kannauj. It was also reported that candidates supported by BJP also won 14 seats in Agra.

On Friday, a total of 187 candidates took back their nomination papers. For the rest 476 seats, polling was scheduled to be held on Saturday.

The block level elections are not contested on party symbols. But, BJP claimed that in over 334 seats candidates supported by it won unopposed. Final tally of BJP and allies as reported on evening of Saturday stood at 635.

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Samajwadi party led by Akhilesh Yadav has alleged that BJP has been using government machinery to influence the block level polls in its favour.

During the filing of the nomination papers for the block level polls, violence was reported from various places across the state. In a case of violence in Lakhimpur, a woman’s saree was yanked by two men during nomination filing.

The state election commission stated that 1778 candidates filed their nomination out of which 68 had their candidature cancelled due to discrepancies in nomination papers. Out of the remaining 1710 candidates, 187 took back their nomination papers. Hence, 1523 candidates remained in the fray.

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In the total 826 blocks, elections were to be held on 825 chairman seats by more than 75000 ward members. These ward members were elected in April.

In Gonda, the Mujhena block has been kept out of block election as its term is till early 2022.

Candidates with support of BJP won 6 seats in Moradabad, three seats in Bhadohi,15 seats in Sitapur and 14 seats in Hardoi. The candidates with support from the saffron party also won 8 seats in Muzaffarnagar, and 12 out of 22 seats in Azamgarh, which is known as a stronghold of SP & BSP.