UP polls: As lotus blooms cycle fails to catch up

Lucknow, Mar 10: The Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has crossed majority mark in Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections, according to the early trends data shared by the Election Commission.

The BJP was leading with against 126 of its nearest rival Samajwadi Party in the initial rounds of counting of votes in Uttar Pradesh.

Among those leading included Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav from Karhal, Shivpal Yadav from Jaswant Nagar, and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya from Sirathu.

Counting of votes for the 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh began on Thursday morning with a three-layer security in place and cameras installed at all counting centres. In the initial rounds, postal ballots were counted.

According to early trends available from 326 constituencies, the BJP was leading in 261 and the SP in 126 seats. The BSP and the Congress were leading in six and two seats, respectively.

Two candidates of Jansatta Dal, including Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya in Kunda seat, were leading.

All the exit polls have predicted a BJP win in the state.

According to the official figure of EC available for 271 seats, the BJP is leading in 163, while the SP is leading in 76, Apna Dal in nine and the RLD and the Congress were ahead in six and four seats, respectively.

Congress Legislature Party leader Aradhana Mishra Mona was leading in Rampur Khas constituency by over 500 votes.

After the initial rounds of counting, the Congress candidate got 3,576 votes while her nearest BJP rival Nagesh Pratap Singh secured 3,001 votes. BJP candidate and minister Shrikant Sharma was leading from Mathura constituency.

After the initial round of counting, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath secured 5,540 votes in Gorakhpur Urban seat while his nearest rival SP's Subhawati Shukla got 1076 votes, according to the EC. Chandra Shekhar of the Azad Samaj Praty got only 133 votes.

Meanwhile, Akhilesh Yadav is leading from Karhal seat by over 16,000 votes against BJP candidate S P Singh Baghel.

After the initial rounds of counting, Sharma got 5,194 votes while his nearest rival and Congress candidate Pradeep Mathur secured on 1,246 votes. BSP candidate S K Sharma got 935 votes and SP's Devendra Agarwal 271 votes.

The BJP candidate is leading in the temple town of Ayodhya over his nearest SP rival. According to the website of Election Commission, Ved Prakash Gupta of the BJP is leading over his SP rival Tej Narayan alias Pawan Pandey by 656 votes. So far, Ved Prakash Gupta has got 3,640 votes, while Tej Narayan has got 2,984 votes.