Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, has won his maiden state election from Karhal – in his family stronghold of Mainpuri – by beating the BJP’s SP Singh Baghel by over 67,000 votes.
Yadav polled over 1.47 lakh votes to Baghel’s 80,045. If he is to stay an MLA, Yadav must resign from his position as a Lok Sabha MP from Kannauj.
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Karhal is a long-time supporter of the Samajwadi Party and has voted for them in every election since 1993, except in 2002 when the BJP won the seat.
The ruling BJP’s biggest rival in the 2022 UP Assembly election is Yadav, who has stitched together a ‘rainbow’ alliance of regional parties, including Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal and Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party.
Yogi Adityanath, the new Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, won his first election in Gorakhpur, a city in eastern Uttar Pradesh that is considered to be his stronghold. He recorded an emphatic victory against his opponents.
Adityanath won by a large margin against the Samajwadi Party’s Subhawati Shukla.
Despite the BJP’s strong showing in the exit polls, Yadav’s hopes of a repeat of his 2012 election victory were dashed after he was defeated by the BJP.
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The party expected to get over 250 seats in the 403-member Assembly, and it has done just that.
At the time of writing, Election Commission data showed that the BJP had won 158 out of 543 seats in parliament, while the Samajwadi Party had won 96 out of 543 seats.
The Samajwadi Party has cut the BJP’s lead from 2017 and improved its score; in the last poll, the BJP won a majority of 312 out of 403 seats.
Rahul Gandhi tweeted to say that he “humbly accepts the people’s verdict” and was promptly trolled by union minister Smriti Irani.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra called on her party’s cadre to not be discouraged and keep fighting in the state elections.
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