Election Result: BJP crosses half mark in first two hours of counting of votes.
Lucknow:
Yogi Adityanath will return with BJP as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh – for the first time India’s most politically important state In 37 years – with a far higher vote share than last time since votes were counted on Thursday.
Shortly before 9:30 am, NDTV called elections for the BJP, projecting over 250 seats for the party out of 403 in the state. By 10 am, it looked like the BJP might cross 300 – the ambitious target set by the party.
The BJP has secured 44.6 per cent votes – a significant improvement of 5 per cent over the 2017 elections.
Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, with almost half the seats, won the last election, but fell far short of the party’s expectations.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress are leading in five and four seats respectively. As per the latest trends, Apna Dal (Sonelal) is leading in 11 seats and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is leading in seven seats.
These include Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban, Akhilesh Yadav from Karhal, Shivpal Yadav of his party from Jaswant Nagar and Congress Legislature Party leader Aradhana Shukla from Rampur Khas (Pratapgarh).
Adityanath is headed for a massive victory in Gorakhpur Urban seat over his nearest rival Samajwadi Party’s Subhavati Shukla by around 51,974 votes.
However, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya is trailing by 82 votes from Sirathu seat, while Samajwadi Party’s Swami Prasad Maurya is also trailing from Fazil Nagar seat. Congress state president Ajay Kumar Lallu is trailing from Tumkuhi Raj.
With 80 parliamentary seats, Uttar Pradesh holds the key to power at the Center and may give clues to the national mood ahead of the 2024 general election.
Home to nearly a fifth of India’s 135 crore people, UP sends the most MLAs to the parliament of any state.
The majority for the BJP would make it the first party to get a second consecutive term in more than three decades.
The Samajwadi Party, considered the BJP’s biggest challenger in Uttar Pradesh, had forged a diversified alliance with smaller parties that it hoped would complement its Muslim-Yadav support base with OBC voters.
Despite anger over the government’s extreme criticism of COVID-19, high unemployment, and agrarian reforms canceled after protests last year, exit polls had predicted a comfortable majority for the BJP.
The BJP has long predicted that it will retain the state during the pandemic due to policies such as free staples for the poor, crackdown on crime and its appeal to Hindu voters.