The BJP has dispelled the narrative surrounding the party and its star leader Yogi Adityanath's waning popularity in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh, with the UP bypoll results favoring the saffron party and its allies.
As of 2:30 pm, according to ECI figures, the NDA (BJP and RLD) is leading in seven out of nine seats, with the Samajwadi Party leading in one and securing victory in another.
While much of the outcome was anticipated, the major setbacks for the SP appear to be on the Kundarki (Moradabad) and Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar) seats.
Until midday the Katehri in Ambedkar Nagar was seeing a close battle between BJP’s Dharmraj Nishad and SP’s Shobhawati Verma with leads changing with every round of counting. However, the gap has now started to widen with roughly 11,000votes now between them after 20 (out of 31) rounds of voting.
The seat was previously held by Lalji Verma twice (once as SP member and once as BSP member). His wife, Shobhawati Verma has now entered the fray after Lalji Verma vacated the seat to go on to become the Ambedkar Nagar MP. The BJP has only ever won the seat once in 1991.
Meanwhile in Kundarki, ECI trends at 2:30 pm show BJP’s Ramveer Singh leading in Kundarki (Moradabad) by roughly 98,000 votes. The Muslim-dominated seat previously held by SP’s Zia Ur Rehman Barq (now Sambhal MP) has only been won once by BJP in 1993.
The Kundarki seat which is dominated by Turk Muslims who look to have gone with the BJP rather than SP’s Mohammad Rizwan who has previously held the seat in 2002, 2012 and 2017.
The Turq community has traditionally supported the Barq family with Zia Ur Rehamn Barq being the previous MLA. In May 2024, in the wake of the Lok Sabha elections, Outlook reported on the long-standing rivalry between the Turq and the Nawab families which has for many years divided voters.
The Samajwadi Party registered a win in Kanpur’s Sisamau where incarcerated former MLA Irfan Solanki’s wife Naseem Solanki was in the fray. She defeated BJP’s Suresh Awashti by 8564 votes.
At 2:30pm BJP’s Deepak Patel led the counting by roughly 11,000 votes with SP’s Mohd Mujataba Siddiqui in the run up.
RLD’s Mithlesh Pal leads in Meerapur, BJP’s Sanjeev Sharma in Ghaziabad, Shuchismita Maurya in Majhawan, Surender Diler in Khair, SP’s Tej Pratap Singh in Karhal, the seat previously held by SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav.
As of now it seems to be 7-2 in NDA’s favour, which will come as a relief to Adityanath-led BJP which had been under pressure to restore its former glory which took a big hit in the Lok Sabha election when BJP was reduced to half its numbers and SP going on to become the single largest party in Uttar Pradesh
