Landslide victory for BJP in UP; SP, BSP, Congress routed

Lucknow, May 16: In a stunning comeback in

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has clinched victory in 33 seats and has taken an unassailable lead in 38 other seats, inching closer to a historic win by surpassing its highest tally of 58 seats in the state which brought NDA government to power in 1998.

Congress has won one seat and leading in another, SP has won two and leading in three others while Apna Dal has recorded victory in one seat while leading in another. The party routed regional satraps like Mayawati whose party BSP could not open its account and Mulayam Singh Yadav whose Samajwadi Party won only those seats where members of his clan contested.

Congress, which won 22 seats in 2009, shrunk to only Gandhis' pocket borough of Rae Bareli where its President Sonia Gandhi won by a margin of 3.52 lakh votes and Rahul Gandhi making a hefty lead of one lakh votes from Amethi. BJP's ally Apna Dal also won both the seats where it was contesting increasing the saffron party's tally to 73.

On the remaining seven seats, BJP remained runner-up thus indicating the overwhelming number of votes that the saffron party won from Uttar Pradesh. The party under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee had scored 58 seat in 1998, resulting in the formation of NDA government at the Centre.

In 1998, Uttar Pradesh had 85 seats of which five have gone to Uttarakhand after division. Led by a whirlwind campaign by its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, the party improved its all time high vote share of 36.49 per cent taking it to over 42 per cent. A saving grace for BSP is that it remained runner-up on 33 seats.

The party, however, lost is voter base from 27.42 per cent in 2009 to 19.7 per cent this election. Ruling Samajwadi party won only those five seats where Yadav and his family members were contesting. However, it only marginally lost its vote share from 23.26 per cent in 2009 when it won 23 seats to 22.1 this election.

Yadav himself won from both Azamgarh and Mainpuri seats, daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav won from Kannauj and nephews Dharmanadra Yadav and Akshay Yadav won from Badaun and Firozabad seats respectively.

All the Congress ministers including Salman Khurshid, RPN SIngh, Beni Prasad Verma, Pradip Jain Aditya, PL Punia and sitting MPs lost from their respective seats. BJP ally Apna Dal won both Pratapgarh and Mirzapur seats, where Harivansh Singh and Anupriya Patel clinched victory.

PTI