Congress plays spoil sport for mahagathbandhan in eight seats of UP

Contrary to the claims of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, that the Congress was not cutting into the votes of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh as the party had fielded only those candidates either with prospects of victory or having the potential to damage the BJP’s chances in the state, the scenario is quite different.

While her mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was the lone winner from Uttar Pradesh and her brother and Congress President Rahul Gandhi lost the party bastion Amethi to BJP’s Smriti Irani, there are many candidates of the grand old party who could not manage to save their security deposits.

A deep dive into the final election numbers show that it was the Congress and its candidates which did much damage to the prospects of the Mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh. In all, the Congress nominees in eight seats, clearly cut the votes of the alliance, resulting in clear victory to the candidates of the BJP.

In Badaun, Sanghamitra Maurya of the BJP polled 5,11,352 votes and won. The SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav got 4,92,898 votes and the Congress candidate Salim Iqbal Sherwani upset his applecart by getting 51,896 votes.

In Banda, RK Singh Patel of the BJP secured 4,77,926 votes to emerge victorious. Shyama Charan Gupta of the SP came second with 4,18,988 votes and Bal Kumar Patel of the Congress got 75,350 votes.

In Barabanki, Upendra Singh Rawat of the BJP won by getting 5,35,917 votes followed by Ram Sagar Rawat of the SP, who secured 4,25,777 votes. In the third spot was Tanuj Punia of the Congress with 1,59,611 votes.

Similar was the case in Basti where Harish Dwivedi of the BJP won by securing 4,71,162 votes. Ram Prasad Chaudhry of the BSP came second with 4,40,808 votes. Raj Kishore Singh of the Congress polled 86,920 votes.

Dhaurahra seat witnessed a similar contest from where Rekha Verma of the BJP won with 5,12,906 votes while Arshad Illiyas Siddiqui of the BSP emerged runner-up with 3,52,294 votes. Jitin Prasada came third with 1,62,856 votes.

Likewise, Meerut seat was won by Rajendra Agarwal of the BJP, who secured 5,86,164 votes. Haji Yaqoob Qureshi of the BSP was runner-up with 5,81,455 votes. Here, the Congress candidate Harendra Agarwal clinched the third position with 34,479 votes.

Sant Kabir Nagar seat was won by Praveen Kumar Nishad of the BJP. He got 4,67,543 votes followed by Bheeshma Shankar of the BSP who raked in 4,31,794 votes. Bhal Chandra Yadav of the Congress secured 1,28,506 votes.

Union Minister Maneka Gandhi won from Sultanpur seat securing 4,59,196 votes. Chandra Bhadra Singh of the BSP got 4,44,670 votes. Sanjay Singh of the Congress polled 41,681 votes.

The vote figures of candidates from these three parties in the above mentioned eight parliamentary constituencies show that the Congress indeed played the role of spoiler for the SP-BSP combine. And had these candidates not been fielded by the Congress, these eight seats could well have gone into the kitty of the Mahagathbandhan.

Family feud cost the SP Firozabad from where senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav’s son and incumbent MP Akshay Yadav attempted to defend his seat. Ousted party leader Shivpal Yadav, who had formed his own party – Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia), also entered the fray here. While Akshay Yadav got 4,67,038 votes, he lost to the BJP’s Chandra Sen Jadaun who polled 4,95,819 votes. And Akshay Yadav loss from here was due to Shivpal Yadav who won 91,869 votes and upset his applecart.

Vivek Avasthi is Senior Editor, Politics, with Business Television India – BTVI