With five of the 11 MLC seats that went to polls in its kitty, the Samajwadi Party is set to increase its tally in the Legislative Council to 12, two more than the 10 required to retain the position of the Leader of the Opposition (LoP).The results, which were declared Thursday after a 55-hour counting process, mark a shift in the balance between the SP and BJP, with the former expanding its presence and the latter retaining its overall tally.AdvertisementThe SP retained both its Varanasi seats, wrested Lucknow Graduates seat from the BJP, and won Agra Teachers, previously held by an Independent. The BJP retained four of the six Teachers’ constituencies and both the Meerut and Agra Graduates’ seats.In the 2020 elections, the BJP had won six seats, the SP three and Independents two.Read | BJP gets a message on PM Modi’s turf Varanasi months before Uttar Pradesh electionsSP’s Varanasi showAdvertisementThe SP’s performance in Varanasi was central to its showing, with the party retaining both the Graduates’ and Teachers’ constituencies.In Varanasi Graduates’, sitting SP MLC Ashutosh Sinha defeated BJP candidate Kedarnath Singh in a contest marked by prolonged counting. The process stretched beyond 55 hours, with leaders and workers of both parties keeping vigil outside the counting centre as the results remained contentious.Read | Why Akhilesh Yadav asked party workers not to hold rallies after poll winsIn the Varanasi Teachers’ seat, SP’s sitting MLC Lal Bihari Yadav won re-election.The twin victories denied the BJP a breakthrough and allowed the SP to preserve its existing representation in Varanasi while adding seats elsewhere.SP’s gainsThe SP’s clearest gain from the BJP came in the Lucknow Graduates’ seat, where Kanti Singh defeated BJP candidate Avneesh Kumar Singh by 14,855 votes.Kanti Singh secured 51,168 votes against 36,313 for Avneesh Kumar Singh.Read | Before UP polls, how BJP is seeking to tackle pockets of internal discontentThe victory strengthened the SP’s position in the Graduates’ category, where it won three of the five seats.The SP’s other gain came in the Agra Teachers’ seat, where party candidate Akash Agarwal won with 14,046 votes. The constituency had been held by an Independent in 2020.Strong show in Graduates’ seatsThe SP won three of the five Graduates’ constituencies — Allahabad-Jhansi, Varanasi and Lucknow — while the BJP retained Meerut and Agra.The BJP won Meerut Graduates through Dinesh Kumar Goyal and Agra Graduates through Manvendra Pratap Singh.The SP’s stronger showing in this category was a key factor behind its improved overall tally, combining the retention of two seats with a gain from the BJP.Teachers’ seats with BJPThe BJP performed better in the Teachers’ category, winning four of the six constituencies, while the SP won the remaining two.The BJP retained the Lucknow Teachers’ seat through Umesh Dwivedi, Meerut Teachers’ through Shrichand Sharma and Bareilly-Moradabad Teachers’ through Hari Singh Dhillon. It also won the Gorakhpur-Faizabad Teachers’ seat through Dhruv Kumar Tripathi in a close contest.The BJP’s four victories helped it maintain its overall tally of six, despite losing the Lucknow Graduates’ seat.What it means for SPThe improved tally gives the SP a stronger numerical position in the Legislative Council ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.Sources said SP president Akhilesh Yadav is expected to visit Varanasi soon. On Thursday, Yadav said the BJP’s defeat “was the defeat of its policies concerning teachers, students and education” and “the educated unemployed graduates had also delivered their verdict” against the party.He claimed that the results have triggered an existential crisis within the BJP as everyone knows that it won through tampering, and the party’s internal rifts have further intensified tension between the two engines of the government. “None of our candidates has actually lost; they just could not win in the face of the BJP’s manipulation,” Yadav claimed, adding that the party considered them winners even without certificates.For the BJP, the results represent a mixed outcome. It retained its overall tally of six seats and won four of the six Teachers’ constituencies, but lost Lucknow Graduates to the SP.