LANDSLIDE VICTORY FOR BJP IN UP

In a stunning comeback in Uttar Pradesh, BJP today bagged 33 seats and took an unassailable lead in 38 others, surpassing its highest tally of 58 seats in the state which had catapulted NDA to power in 1998. Congress, which had 22 seats in 2009, managed to hold on only to the Nehru-Gandhi family pocketborough of Rae Bareli and Amethi while the Mayawati-led BSP faced a complete rout. Samajwadi Party won two seats and was leading in three others while Apna Dal has clinched one seat and was leading in another.Mulayam Singh Yadav's party won only those seats where members of his clan contested. In Rae Bareli, Congress President Sonia Gandhi won by a margin of 3.52 lakh votes while Rahul Gandhi had a lead of one lakh votes in 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 bagged 58 seat in 1998, when NDA government was formed 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 second 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 SP marginally lost its vote share from 23.26 per cent in 2009 when it had won 23 seats to 22.1 this election. Mulayam won 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.