Regional Parties Back To Holding All Aces In This Election

Regional satraps are back to holding all the aces in this Lok Sabha elections as counting trends emerged on Tuesday, with Chandrababu Naidu's TDP and Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party making stupendous gains in Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh respectively.

While the TDP and Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) hold the key to the government formation of the NDA after the BJP fell short of getting a majority on its own, some other regional parties like the YSRCP, BRS, BJD and BSP have lost ground at the hustings.

The 2024 Lok Sabha election result trends have shown the strengthening of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, emerging as a strong force by being ahead in 34 seats while the BJP was leading in 36 seats. In 2019, the SP had won only five seats while the Bahujan Samaj Party, which is facing a rout this time, had bagged 10 seats.

Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress has also strengthened its position from 22 Lok Sabha last time and was ahead in 29 seats out of 42 in West Bengal this time. K Chandrashekar Rao's BRS was not leading in any seats in the counting so far in Telangana, even though it had won nine seats last time. Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) in Maharashtra was also leading in nine seats, against 18 last time before the split in the party.

The NCP (Sharad Pawar) was also ahead in seven seats this time against five seats in 2019. M K Stalin-led DMK held on to its dominance in Tamil Nadu and was ahead on 21 seats this time against 23 seats in 2019. The TDP was ahead in 16 Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh and in 135 assembly seats after it decimated the ruling YSRCP led by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. YSRCP had won 23 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and came to power in the state in 2019. In Bihar, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) was ahead on all the five seats it contested this time. The RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav was also gaining four seats after it did not open its account the last time.

The JMM, whose leader Hemant Soren was arrested on corruption charges, was also ahead on three seats this time. The JMM got only one seat in the 2019 election.