Even as the saffron wave swept the state, the alliance of the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and the Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance put up a fight in West UP winning at least half of the 14 seats of Meerut, Moradabad and Saharanpur divisions.
Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary, contesting from Muzaffarnagar and Baghpat , were engaged in a close fight against BJP’s Sanjeev Balyan and Satyapal Singh; the father was trailing by 3,782 votes, while the son was trailing by a few thousand votes at 9pm.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP swept all 14 seats in the region, but this time its candidates felt the pressure of the caste calculus of the alliance.
In Meerut division, the BJP won Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr and Meerut while in the Saharanpur division, it won Kairana. The BSP won Saharanpur.
All the six seats in Moradabad division — Bijnor, Nagina, Amroha, Sambhal, Rampur and Moradabad — were won by the alliance.
“It was an election between Modi and others. People gave their referendum to Modi over the issues of Hindutva and nationalism,” RLD leader Ainuddin Shah said.
The SP-BSP-RLD alliance did not work in the Braj region, though.
Except the Mainpuri seat which was won by SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, Braj region witnessed a Modi wave.
In Firozabad, the much awaited “chacha-bhatija” combination appeared counter-productive to the Yadav family and the BJP candidate emerged the winner.
Sitting SP MP Akshay Yadav was significantly behind his BJP rival Chandra Sen Jadaun; Shivpal Yadav played spoilsport to his nephew even as he himself stood a dismal third.
Like 2014, the Congress failed to open its account and UPCC president Raj Babbar’s loss to BJP’s Rajkumar Chahar in Fatehpur Sikri added insult to injury.
Sitting MP and actor Hema Malini performed well in Mathura where the incumbent MP was ahead of her RLD rival by more than 2 lakh votes when reports last came in.
The Kalyan Singh factor worked with his son Rajveer Singh alias Raju Bhaiyya of BJP was leading in Etah in a closely fought contest.
In Aligarh, BJP’s sitting MP Satish Gautam was on his way to victory again. SP general secretary Ramjilal Suman was trailing in Hathras to BJP’s Kishan Singh Diler.
First Published:
May 24, 2019 00:05 IST
Source: HindustanTimes