In at least 15 Lok Sabha seats, the margin of votes between the top two leading candidates was less than the votes secured by the person third in the tally by 6 pm.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Interestingly, in at least two seats -- Siwan and Karakat, both in Bihar, an Independent is right behind the leading candidate.
In the trends available till 6 pm, Vijaylakshmi Devi from the Janata Dal-United was leading with 3,66,168 votes in Siwan followed by Hena Shahab, the wife of former MP from this seat, Mohammad Shahabuddin.
While Shahab, who fought the polls as an independent, was trailing behind Devi with a margin of 87,806 votes, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Awadh Bihari Choudhary was on the third position.
Similarly in Karakat, Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist Liberation candidate Raja Ram Singh was leading with 3,70,929 votes by 6 pm, while Bhojpuri singer Pawan Singh, an Independent, stood behind him by a margin of 1,04,494 votes.
Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Morcha was trailing on the third position by 6 pm, data on Election Commission of India website showed.
As counting exercise that began at 8 am continued till late evening, the latest trends showed the Bharatiya Janata Party won 143 seats and was leading in 97 of 542 seats, while the Congress had won 57 and had leads in 42.
The country's most politically significant state Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha, and the BJP's bastion of power seemed to be the game changer, bringing the ruling NDA down from the promise of '400 par' with which 2024 polls had started.
In Amroha seat, BJP's Kanwar Singh Tanwar had amassed 3,85,120 votes and leading the tally with a slender margin of 1,619 votes by 6 pm, with Congress' Danish Ali trailing behind him.
However, BSP's Mujahid Husain had secured 1,38,998 votes by the same time.
Similarly, in Bansgaon constituency, Kamlesh Paswan of the BJP was leading with a margin of 3,708 votes followed by Congress' Sadal Prasad followed by BSP's Ramsamujh who had secured 60,103 votes by 6 pm.
In Muzaffarnagar, the margin of votes between the top two leading candidates in that order -- Harendra Singh Malik of the Samajwadi Party and Sanjeev Kumar Balyan of the BJP -- stood at 13,316 while Dara Singh Prajapati of the BSP had secured 1,33,119 votes by late evening.
In Sultanpur, Rambhual Nishad of the Samajwadi Party had amassed 4,40,579 votes and led with a margin of 43,034 votes followed by BJP's Maneka Gandhi, while Udraj Verma of the BSP had secured 1,62,273 votes.
The situation was similar in Azamgarh, where Bhojpuri actor and sitting MP Dinesh Lal Yadav 'Nirahua' was trailing on the second position behind SP's Dharmendra Yadav, with a margin of 1,59,112 votes.
However, Mashhod Sabeeha Ansari of the BSP had secured 1,79,189 votes by 6 pm, more than the margin.
In Basti, SP's Ram Prasad Chaudhary led with 98,883 votes followed by BJP's Harish Chandra and BSP's Lavkush Patel who had secured 1,02,818 votes.
In Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore, Ganapathy Rajkumar P of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam led with a margin of 78,682 votes by 6 pm, followed by BJP's Annamalai K and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's Singai G Ramachandran was on the third position with 1,62,566 votes.
In Badaun, while the margin between the SP and BJP candidates was 33,419 votes by 6 pm, the BSP has secured 86,380 votes.
Similarly in Akbarpur, such a margin was 53,709 while the candidate finishing third had 68,750 votes by 6 pm.
The trend was similar in Ballia, Ambedkar Nagar, Domariyanganj, Banda and Bijnor seats.
In Aligarh, Satish Kumar Gautam of the BJP was leading with a margin 14,775 votes while Hitendra Kumar of the BSP on the third position had secured 1,23,717 votes by 6 am.
In Chandauli seat, former Union minister Mahendra Nath Pandey lost to SP's Birendra Singh by a margin of 21,565 votes, while the candidate on the third position secured 1,59,903 votes.
