Uttar Pradesh election results 2017 LIVE updates: BJP closing in on 300-seat mark, set to sweep UP

The Bharatiya Janata Party appears to be heading towards a landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh as initial trends suggest the party will likely win over 280 seats. As soon as counting of postal votes began, the party stole an early march over its rivals from the words go. The party’s leads in Bareilly and Awadh show the kind of progress it has made since the last assembly elections. It is now leading in 8 our of the 10 seats Awadh and seven out of the nine seats in Bareilly. SP-Congress alliance is currently a distant second, closely followed by the BSP in third.

Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results 2017 LIVE UPDATES:

10.35 am: The BJP candidate in the Muslim-dominated Deoband seat is leading over 10,000 votes over his nearest rival. BSP’s Majid Ali trails with 24,823 votes and SP’s Mavia Ali with 17,125 votes.

10.29 am: Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan is leading with over 8,000 votes in Rampur. Rape-accused UP Minister, Gaytri Prajapati is trailing to BJP’s Garima Singh in Amethi. The margin is just over 500 votes. In Shamli, which witnessed riots in 2013, BJP candidate Tejendra Nirwal is leading with close to 20,000 votes over Congress candidate Pankaj Kumar Malik.

10.15 am: We have our first reactions from the BJP. Speaking to news agency ANI, party MP Yogi Adityanath says the people of Uttar Pradesh rejected the SP-Congress combine. He calls it a “vote for development”. Also, BJP state chief Keshav Prasad Maurya says UP will help reelect PM Modi in 2019. When asked about the SP, Maurya said Akhilesh and his uncles ruined the state.

10.12 am: The BJP is all set to capture the Vidhan Sabha, unless a late sprint from the SP-Congress spoils the party.

10.08 am: The Congress is staring at another rout in Uttar Pradesh, a state it has remained out of power for 27 years. It looks like the wait is set to get a lot longer. Here is a peek into the Congress headquarters in Delhi, the empty chairs says it all.

10.00 am: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s son, Pankaj Singh is leading by over 5000 votes in Noida, which is the gateway to Uttar Pradesh. It has always been considered as a safe seat. However, the party had to quell a rebellion by local party workers who accused the BJP high command of parachuting in “outsiders”. Union Minister Mahesh Sharma, under whose Lok Sabha constituency Noida is a part of, had taken Pankaj under his wing and reportedly managed his poll campaign. Despite Rajnath not campaigning for his son, BJP president Amit Shah and Venkaiah Naidu were in Noida to address meetings.

9.55 am: In Kairana, where the BJP alleged there was a mass exodus of Hindu families, Samajwadi Party candidate Nahid Hasan is leading with over 1000 votes over BJP’s Mriganka Singh. The BJP, however, is leading in riot-hit Muzaffarnagar.

9.45 am: In Fatehpur, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his infamous kabristan remark, BJP candidate Vikram Singh is leading with over 1000 votes. This is what PM Modi said last month: ““Agar kabristan me bijli hai to shamshaan me bhi honi chahiye. Agar Ramzan mein bijli aati hai, to Diwali me bhi aani chahiye, bhedbhav nahi hona chahiye.”

9.38 am: Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav is currently trailing to BJP’s Reeta Bahuguna Joshi in Lucknow cantonment, according to Election Commission data. The lead, however, is less than 1000 votes. News agency ANI reports that former Samajwadi Party state president Shivpal Yadav, who was at the centre of the rift within the party, is leading in Jaswant Nagar.

9.35 am: Congress stronghold Bareilly likely to fall as BJP is leading in seven out of the nine seats, reports Ishita Mishra. In Agra, the party is ahead in six of the nine seats.

9.25 am: There is a flurry of activity outside the BJP headquarters in Lucknow. A huge contingent of media personnel are camping outside the gates.

9.22 am: The controversy surrounding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation drive seems moot now as the BJP is set for a landslide victory in the state. The party crossed the halfway mark and has established a gap of over 150 seats over the SP-Congress combine. Poll panelists on TV channels, however, appear more cautious this time around and are waiting for the full picture to emerge.

9.15 am: This is the mood outside BSP supremo Mayawati’s residence-cum-party office in Lucknow. Poll pundits painted the former chief minister as the dark horse in this election. If the initial trends hold true then the party is set to finish third, behind the BJP and the SP-Congress.

(Source: Express photo by Lalmani Verma)

9.13 am: It doesn’t look like this yagna performed by Samajwadi Party workers at a Hanuman mandir near the party office in Lucknow is helping stop the BJP in Uttar Pradesh from coming to power.

9.07 am: Abhishek Manu Sanghvi of the Congress tells NDTV that it is very early to write obituaries as past experience suggests.

9.04 am: It appears there are more media personnel outside the Samajwadi Party headquarters in Lucknow than party workers.

9.00 am: It is still early days but the BJP appears to have left its rivals far behind by leading in over 100 seats. The SP-Congress is a distant second with leads in just 26 seats, closely followed by the BSP with 21.

8.56 am: Local in Lucknow tracking the election results on a giant TV screen outside the Vidhan Sabha. (Source: Express photo by Tashi Tobgyal)

8.51 am: Our Lucknow correspondent, Lalmani Verma reports that the Samajwadi Party headquarters appears almost deserted. Only party state president Naresh Uttam is present at the party office with over a dozen workers. And Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is likely to follow today’s developments from his official residence.

8.47 am: The BJP just crossed the 50-seat mark, it leads in around 67 seats out of the 102 in which counting has begun so far.

8.33 am: BJP is currently leading in 32 of the 55 seats in which counting has commenced. If the party is able to sustain its momentum then there is no reason why it shouldn’t be able to emerge as the largest party in UP. We will get the full picture around 10 am later in the day. According to NDTV, the party is doing extremely well in Awadh as it is leading in 8 of the 10 seats, up from one seat it won in last assembly elections.

8.31 am: Eye in the sky: security drones hover above a counting centre in Lucknow. Counting is currently underway in 78 centres across 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh.

8.28 am: The BJP seems to have stolen an early march on its rivals. They are leading in 10 seats at the moment, closely followed by the SP which is leading in six. The BSP still is leading in just one seat. However, one shouldn’t read too much into the counting of postal votes as we have seen in Bihar in 2015.

8.21 am: Jailed MLA Mukhtar Ansari is leading in Mau and BJP in Shamli. Many of these trends are from the postal votes. They are expected to swing wildly once counting of EVMs begin around 9 am.

8.19 am: The BJP was also quickly off its mark as it currently leads in two seats.

8.15 am: We have our first leads in the Uttar Pradesh election results. Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party are leading in one seat each according to initial trends.

8.11 am: Two days before Holi, the BJP state headquarters in Lucknow was decked with decorative lighting and party leaders placed advanced orders for roses, ladoos, firecrackers and colours.

decorative lights, party leaders have in advance placed orders for roses, laddoos, firecrackers and colours to play Holi

8.06 am: Caste is set to play a major role in this election with the Dalits traditionally aligning with the BSP, the OBCs with the Yadavs and the upper castes with the BJP. The party that will woo the electorate across the castes is expected to come to power.

8.03 am: In case the state delivers a hung verdict, the BJP ruled out aligning with any other party, especially the BSP despite supporting the Mayawati-led government in 1995. They pulled out of the government after just four months. The SP on the other hand did not reject the possibility of entering into an alliance with the BSP. In 1993, the two arch rivals were in alliance for a brief period of two years before pulling the plug. SP’s alliance partner the Congress is also adopting a wait-and-watch policy. The BSP was part of the UPA alliance till 2008 before withdrawing its support.

7.59 am: At 8 am, counting of postal votes will commence at counting booths.

7.51 am: In the run-up to the polls, which were conducted in seven phases, leaders cutting across party lines did not lose an opportunity to launch into personal attacks. The highlight of the campaign was when PM Modi spelled out SCAM: Samajwadi, Congress, Akhilesh and Mayawati. BJP national president Amit Shah went a step further saying that KASAB meant Ka’ for Congress, ‘Sa’ for the Samajwadi Party and ‘B’ for BSP.

7.42 am: In this election, the BSP fielded the most number of Muslim candidates (97). The BJP yet again failed to give party tickets to a single Muslim candidate in a state that has around 4 crore members from the community. Speaking to Times Now, Union Minister Rajnath Singh said the party should have fielded Muslim candidates. He, however, clarified saying that the party’s election committee awarded tickets based on the winnability of a candidate.

7.39 am: In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP got the lion share of the votes by garnering 42 per cent of those cast. The SP-Congress registered 29 per cent and the BSP got 20 per cent. Polling pundits say any party looking to win the state need to notch up at least 35 per cent of the vote share.

7.28 am: Here is what at stake for all the parties in the fray. For the Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav is looking to emerge from the shadow of his father and party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav by putting on a strong show in this Vidhan Sabha election. It’s alliance partner, Congress will see vice-president Rahul Gandhi looking to revive the party’s fortunes in the state and hoping to form government after staying 27 years out of power. The BJP will be looking to use the UP verdict as a referendum for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation drive and as a vote for vikas.

7.25 am: One poll survey predicted the BJP to win as many as 285 seats in the state. Since 1991, the party has been on a decline after it swept the state winning 221 seats. In subsequent elections, it won 174 seats in 1996, 88 in 2002, 51 in 2007, and 47 in 2012.

With the exit polls giving a clear edge to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections 2017, Samajwadi Party chief and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, without naming Bahujan Samaj Party, hinted that he would be open to joining hands with like-minded secular parties  in a bid to stop the state from coming under President’s Rule and being ‘remotely controlled’ by the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre.

The Samajwadi Party-Congress combine are predicted to finish a distant second as most poll surveys either gave the Bharatiya Janata Party a clear majority or predicted that the party would fall just short of the 202 halfway mark. It was Vikas vs Vikas as both camps ran high-pitched poll campaigns in the Hindi heartland. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spearheaded the BJP campaign, which went into the polls without announcing a chief ministerial face, as he crisscrossed the state in an effort to end the party’s 14-year drought in UP. Akhilesh also aggressively campaigned for the SP-Congress alliance as he seeks reelection for a second term.

BSP chief Mayawati is likely to play queenmaker if her party fails to win more seats than what the exit polls had predicted. The Congress leadership says it will wait for the poll results before taking a call on whether to join hands with the BSP to form a grand alliance.