Lok Sabha election results 2024: Boost for Akhilesh as ‘UP ke ladke’ surprise BJP with tough fight | India News

NEW DELHI: As the opposition’s INDIA bloc narrows the seat-tally of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA in Lok Sabha election results, the biggest surprise comes from Uttar Pradesh as the INDIA bloc gives tough fight in a counting day thriller.
Nearly five hours into the counting of votes, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress combined are leading on 39 seats in Uttar Pradesh, and the NDA is ahead on just 40 seats.Akhilesh Yadav’s SP is leading on 34 seats and the Congress on 6 as counting of votes is underway across the country. BJP is ahead on 38 seats and its ally on 2 seats.
Mayawati’s Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP), which decided not to join the alliance and is fighting solo in Uttar Pradesh, is nowhere to be seen yet.
The ‘UP ke ladke’, the phrase used by Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav during the campaign in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election, now seems to be making a dent in the ‘double engine’ government of PM Modi and Yogi Adityanath.

The biggest shocker came from Varanasi when initial trends showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi trailing from the seat. He, however, managed to take over Congress’s Ajai Rai in the later rounds of counting.
The voters also seemed to have rejected the Ram temple pitch of the BJP as its candidate Lallu Singh trailed against SP’s Awadhesh Prasad in Faizabad.
BJP’s Smriti Irani, known as ‘giant-slayer’ after defeating Rahul Gandhi in Amethi in 2019, is also far behind Congress’s Kishori Lal Sharma by over 20,000 seats. Rahul, who is contesting from Rae Bareli, is also leading by over 1,50,000 lakh votes.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who decided to contest Lok Sabha election from Kannauj seat, has a lead against BJP’s Subrat Pathak. His wife Dimple Yadav also has a lead of over 8,000 votes in SP bastion Mainpuri.
Maneka Gandhi and Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal(S) were trailing in Sultanpur and Mirzapur seats respectively.