The BJP perfectly upset the applecart of caste-based alliance of SP-BSP-RLD in Uttar Pradesh, and along with its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal), was leading in two-thirds of 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP with Prime Minister Narendra Modi set to win Varanasi constituency by more than 4.5 lakh votes.
Though the SP-BSP-RLD alliance did not perform as expected, the BSP turned out to be the major gainer by leading in 12 constituencies while the SP was ahead on seven seats. In the 2014 general elections, the BSP had drawn a blank.
The Congress was also in for its biggest setback as party chief Rahul Gandhi was trailing behind BJP’s Smriti Irani by over 38,000. The party is leading in only one constituency — Rae Bareli, where UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was leading BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh by over 1.16 lakh votes.
Initial trends appeared to be mixed for the Yadav clan of the SP, with top leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav maintaining leads and the latter’s cousins and sitting MPs Dharmendra Yadav and Akshay Yadav trailing in Budaun and Firozabad constituencies.
Akhilesh was leading by over 74,000 votes in Azamgarh while his father and SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav was ahead by nearly 13,000 votes. The SP chief’s wife, Dimple Yadav, was also leading by 5,420 votes over BJP’s Subrat Pathak in Kannauj.
The trends also threw up a mixed bag for Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) — a constituent of the BSP-SP led alliance. While RLD chief Ajit Singh was ahead in Muzaffarnagar, his son and party vice-president Jayant Chaudhary was trailing in Baghpat.
For BJP, Union minister Manoj Sinha was trailing in Ghazipur while his rival and mafia-turned-politician Afzal Ansari of BSP was leading by over 50,000 votes.
Union minister Maneka Gandhi was engaged in a see-saw battle in Sultanpur seat. She was ahead of BSP’s Chandra Bhadra Singh ‘Sonu’ by over 7,000 votes.
Three of the four UP Cabinet ministers fielded by the BJP were leading. SP Singh Baghel, Rita Bahuguna Joshi and Satyadev Pachauri were leading over their rivals from their respective seats, while Mukut Bihari Verma was trailing in the latest round of counting.
In Agra, Animal Husbandry Minister SP Singh Baghel had polled 71,570 votes compared to BSP’s Manoj Kumar Soni who polled 57,370 votes.
Meanwhile in Kanpur, Satyadev Pachauri was leading over his Congress rival Sri Prakash Jaiswal by over 40,000 votes.
In Allahabad, Rita Bahuguna Joshi was leading SP’s Rajendra Singh Patel by over 58,000 votes. But in Ambedkar Nagar, BJP’s Mukut Bihari Verma was trailing BSP’s Ritesh Pandey by over 75,000 votes.
SP leader Mohammad Azam Khan was leading BJP’s Jaya Prada in Rampur by over 67,000 votes while BSP’s Kunwar Danish Ali was leading by a margin of over 62,000 votes in Amroha.
BJP state president and sitting MP Mahendra Nath Pandey was leading by more than 35,000 votes in Chandauli. Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Santosh Gangwar were also leading in Lucknow and Bareilly respectively. The BJP was also leading in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, where it was unseated by the opposition in last year’s bypolls.
In Kairana, sitting SP MP Tabassum Hasan maintained her lead over the BJP. She had wrested the seat from the ruling party in last year’s bypolls.
Sitting Mathura MP and BJP candidate Hema Malini was leading by 1.19 lakh votes against her nearest rival and alliance candidate Kunwar Narendra Singh.
Union minister and BJP leader Mahesh Sharma was leading by a margin of nearly one lakh votes from Gautam Buddha Nagar seat after 13 rounds of counting, the district election office said.
In Gorakhpur and Phulpur, where alliance had unseated the BJP in bypolls, the ruling party appeared to be exacting sweet revenge by leading at both places.
The first result in Uttar Pradesh went in favour of BJP’s Akshyawar Lal in Bahraich, who defeated his nearest alliance nominee Shabbir Valmiki by 1.28 lakh votes. Outgoing MP Savitribai Phule, who switched to the Congress from the BJP, got 34,383 votes and came a dismal third and failed to save her deposit.