UP Live: BJP First Party in 37 Years to Win 300-Plus Majority

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Party president Amit Shah congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state party chief, Keshav Prasad Maurya, for BJP’s sweeping victory in UP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. He’s expected to address the party workers at 4 pm.

The Quint’s reporter, Neeraj Gupta, is at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi bringing live updates.

Meanwhile, Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Ravi Shankar Prasad say the mandate is a decisive verdict that the “Prime Minister is our leader”.

BJP leader and MoS for Parliamentary Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi says the Uttar Pradesh mandate is an approval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies.

BJP is leading in four out of five seats in Varanasi.

• Rohaniya - BJP
• Varanasi Cantt - BJP
• Varanasi North - BJP
• Varanasi South - BJP

The fifth seat, Sevapuri, has gone to Apna Dal.

Keshav Prasad Maurya, BJP state chief, is a key figure. BJP fought the elections without a Chief Ministerial face, and Maurya is considered a possible contender for the post.

Gangster-turned-politican, Mukhtar Ansari, is leading from Mau with 8,585 votes. Meanwhile, his son Abbas and brother Sigbatullah are trailing in Ghosi and Mohammadabad seats respectively.

Pankaj Singh, Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s son, is leading in the Noida seat.

Responding to the numbers, Yogi Adityanath said the people’s verdict is in favour of development – vikas.

Congress’ Jitin Prasada is leading in Tilhar with 13498 votes. He’s followed by Roshan Lal Verma of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who has 9905 votes so far.

Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit was asked in an interview with NDTV what Rahul Gandhi’s course of action should be after an increasingly clear loss in Uttar Pradesh.

“If you were Rahul Gandhi, would you step down now?” asked Prannoy Roy.
“Well, I’m not Rahul Gandhi...”

Ram Achal Rajbhar, state president of Bahujan Samaj Party, is leading in Akbarpur.

The trends clearly suggest that BJP is on the way to form a comfortable majority. According to leads, so far 274 seats seem to be with the BJP. The halfway mark in the Uttar Pradesh assembly 202.

Samajwadi Party’s Shivpal Yadav, who has had several conflicts with nephew and incumbent Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, is leading from Jaswantnagar.

Here’s how some of the predictor seats, that are the key swing seats in Uttar Pradesh, seem to have voted so far:

• Bakshi Kaa Talab: BSP
• Chitrakoot: BJP
• Robertsganj: BJP
• Nagina: SP
• Sarojini Nagar: SP
• Shekhupur: BJP

As early trends suggest BJP is surging ahead, party workers are seen celebrating in Lucknow.

Here’s a glimpse of the party-wise vote share from the postal ballots.

According to early trends, BJP is surging ahead. The party is leading in over 100 seats and if these trends persist, it is likely to win a majority.

Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, key candidate from Samajwadi Party, is leading in Amethi. Prajapati has come under controversy over rape accusations and has been at large.

Samajwadi Party’s Azam Khan is leading in Rampur.

Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law, Aparna Yadav, is trailing from Lucknow Cantt. She is contesting against BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi.

Samajwadi Party’s Abdullah Azam Khan, son of Azam Khan, is trailing from Suar in Rampur.

BJP’s Garima Singh is leading in Amethi. Amethi and Rae Bareli are key constituencies for Congress.

Shivpal Yadav, Samajwadi Party leader is optimistic of a win.

According to early trends, BSP’s Mukhtar Ansari, who is contesting from prison, is leading in the constituency of Mau.

• The votes in the Uttar Pradesh election are being counted today
  
• BJP is surging ahead in initial trends with over a 100 seats
• The seven-phase polling began on 11 February and culminated on 8 March
  
• Key contenders in the fray are the SP-Congress alliance, the BJP, and the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party
  
• The exit poll predictions projected BJP in the lead, but falling short of a majority
  
• The Uttar Pradesh assembly has 403 seats
  

The postal ballots are being counted and the BJP has already won a clear lead in the key seat of Shamli in Western Uttar Pradesh.

The counting of votes for 403-assembly seats have begun. The postal ballot votes will be counted first. After a gap of half an hour, the EVM votes will be counted.

BJP candidate from Lucknow Cantt, Rita Bahuguna Joshi has reached the Lucknow counting centre, reports NDTV.

Exhibiting confidence, BJP state chief, Keshav Prasad Maurya, said the exit polls – which project BJP as the largest party – have underestimated the party.

Speaking to ANI, he said:

Samajwadi Party workers perform a havan in Lucknow ahead of the election results.

Meanwhile, BJP candidate from Lucknow Cantt, Rita Bahuguna Joshi offers prayers at Hazratganj’s Hanuman Temple.

Security preparations are in full swing in the capital city of Lucknow. Home Minister Rajnath Singh is the incumbent MP from the city.

The votes for the high-stakes assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh will start being counted at 8 am on Saturday morning. The trends are expected to be available by 11 am.

By 12 noon, a final picture could emerge on who the major players are in the state.

According to Election Commission guidelines, half an hour after the postal ballots are counted, the process of counting EVM votes begins. Counting will take place at 75 centres in UP.

The average exit poll results – which in the past have proven to be unreliable – gave 180 seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly, way short of the 202-mark needed to form a government.

According to the NewsX-MRC poll, the BJP and its allies may win 185 seats, the Congress-Samajwadi Party combine may get 120, and the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 90.

The India TV-CVoter exit poll predicted 155-167 seats for the BJP, 135-147 for the Samajwadi-Congress alliance and 81-93 for the BSP.

The India Today-Axis poll, however, gave the BJP a comfortable majority of 251-279 seats.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 71 parliament seats by winning 328 (81 percent) of 403 assembly segments. This was unprecedented in the recent history of UP elections.

To put that in context, the last time a political party won more than 80 percent of all constituencies in UP was in 1977, when the Janata Party won 80 percent of the seats in a post-emergency landslide.

In 2012, the Samajwadi Party won 224 seats, making Akhilesh Yadav the Chief Minister.

This year, the incumbent Chief Minister – who had contested against the Congress five years ago – has now joined hands with Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.

The biggest state in the country, with a population over 22 crore, has seen it all – from long spells of President's rule, fractured mandate, mass defections, mid-term elections and withdrawal of support in the not-so-distant past.

Till Mayawati romped home riding her social engineering formula in 2007 with her BSP getting a clear mandate, the state has experienced frequent bouts of political instability.

The state was placed under President's rule 10 times, the last being in 2002.

In the late 90s, UP has also been witness to strange bedfellows, with the BJP and the BSP coming together in a coalition of rotating chief ministership for a six-month period, which proved to be a flop in the late 90s.

Of the 16 assemblies elected since 1952, a single party won majority and completed a full five-year term only seven times. On nine occasions, the state got governments which lasted for a period as little as four months.

In other words, Uttar Pradesh is no stranger to political instability.