BJP's best show yet in UP at 57; Congress 0
Displaying its best ever performance in Uttar
Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party captured 57 of the 85 Lok Sabha
seats even as the Samajwadi Party stood way behind in the second
position and the Congress drew blank.
The BJP won five more seats in Uttar Pradesh than it had in the
last general election.
The party's prominent winners included former prime minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow, Murli Manohar Joshi in Allahabad,
and Swami Chinmayanand in Machchlishahar.
However, another important leader, Vinay Katiyar, lost to
Mitra Sen Yadav of the Samajwadi Party in Faizabad.
The Samajwadi Party bagged 20 seats, including Sambhal where party
president and defence minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, emerged
victorious. Another candidate of the party and Union communication
minister, Beni Prasad Verma, won from Kaiserganj. However, SP
candidate Phoolan Devi lost the Mirzapur seat to her BJP rival.
Other important leaders who secured entry in the Lok Sabha are
former prime minister Chandra Shekhar, Maneka Gandhi, former Union
ministers Kalpnath Rai, Sanjay Singh, Arif Mohammad Khan, and
senior Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati.
The BSP won received four seats in the state, while party president
Kanshi Ram suffered defeat in Saharanpur.
Vajpayee is the first person to win the Lucknow seat
thrice consecutively. Former Union minister Sheila Kaul had also won it
thrice, but not in consecutive elections.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the BJP's only Muslim candidate in the
state, annexed the Rampur seat from Begum Noor Bano of the Congress.
While the Samajwadi Party wrested 15 seats from other parties,
the BJP annexed 16, including all the five won by the Congress in
the last elections.
The Congress has suffered a severe jolt in Uttar Pradesh, failing to
win a single seat. Those defeated include state unit president N D Tiwari, former Union ministers Salman Khurshid, Mohsina Kidwai and
Satish Sharma.
Tiwari, who was on three occasions the state chief minister, lost to Ila
Pant, the BJP nominee and daughter-in-law of the state's first chief minister Govind Ballabh Pant, .
Tiwari has resigned as UP Congress chief, owning moral responsibility for the party's defeat.
The Congress also lost both Amethi and Rai Bareli, with which were reportedly associated the personal prestige of Sonia Gandhi. In Amethi, Satish Sharma, lost to Dr Sanjay Singh of the BJP.
Bharatiya Kisan Kamgar Party President Ajit Singh lost his
traditional stronghold, Baghpat, to Som Pal of the BJP.
Significantly, all the four Lok Sabha seats in the hilly Uttarakhand
region of the state were bagged by the BJP. In
Garhwal, Union minister Satpal Maharaj of the Congress (Secular)
lost to B C Khanduri of the BJP.
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