UP Election Results 2019: BJP Fends Off SP-BSP Challenge, But Loses Some Seats
While BJP is leading in 60 seats, SP and BSP are ahead on five and 11 seats. Rahul Gandhi has lost to Smriti Irani in Amethi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party defied the challenge from the Mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh as it’s set to win the majority of the Lok Sabha seats in the state that elects the highest number of parliamentarians.
The BJP was leading in 62 of the 80 constituencies as of 11 p.m. with a vote share of 49.5 percent. While the tally is lower than the 71 seats it won in 2014, the vote share this time is higher than 42.3 percent in the previous general election.
This comes in the face of the challenge put up by Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, bitter adversaries who had tied up to fight the BJP in India’s most populous state. The SP-BSP alliance was leading on 15 seats with 37.23 percent vote share. It’s lower than their combined vote share of 41.80 percent in 2014 when the two parties had contested separately. The SP had won five seats in 2014 and the BSP drew a blank.
The Congress’ vote share has fallen to 6.3 percent from 7.5 percent in 2014 despite Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the latest Gandhi scion to join politics, campaigning for the party aggressively in Eastern UP. The bigger worry for it is that party President Rahul Gandhi has lost to BJP’s Smriti Irani in Amethi by more than 54,000 votes. Gandhi, however, was comfortably leading from Wayanad, Kerala, the second seat he is contesting from this time.
The trends so far have been exceeded the exit polls. The average of all the post-poll surveys had predicted that the BJP was expected to get 52 and the Mahagathbandhan was likely to bag 26.
Uttar Pradesh, which saw polling in seven phases, witnessed an average voter turnout of 59.35 percent, almost unchanged from 58.33 percent in 2014.
Key Constituencies And Candidates: How They Are Faring
- Narendra Modi (BJP) from Varanasi: won by over 4.7 lakh vote margin.
- Rahul Gandhi (Congress) from Amethi: Trailing Smriti Irani (BJP) by 55,000 votes.
- Sonia Gandhi (Congress) from Raebareli: won by 1.6 lakh votes.
- Rajnath Singh (BJP) from Lucknow: won by 3.4 lakh votes.
- Akhilesh Yadav (SP) from Azamgarh: leading by 2.6 lakh votes.
What Exit Polls Predicted
