Uttar Pradesh saw the Bharatiya Janata Party coming to power in the State in 2017, after 15 years. The party made massive gains in the Assembly elections — from a mere 47 seats to 325 seats. While the ruling party in the State hopes to translate these gains into parliamentary seats, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have joined hands to beat the BJP.
The State has 80 Parliamentary constituencies, with 71 of them being held by the BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting from Varanasi again, and Home Minister Rajnath Singh is looking to retain his Lucknow seat. Minister for Textiles Smriti Irani is pitted against Congress president Rahul Gandhi for the second time. SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has held the Mainpuri seat for four consecutive terms.
An average of 59% of voters turned up to exercise their right in the State over seven phases.
Here are the live updates:
Rahul Gandhi trails in Amethi
Congress president Rahul Gandhi is trailing Smriti Irani in Amethi by over 2,000 votes as per trends at the ECI site at 10:30:01 am.
Trends as of 11 a.m
According to data available as of 11 a.m, the BJP is leading in the state in 57 constituencies, followed by the BSP with 12 seats. The SP and Congress are leading in 8 and 1 constituencies respectively.
The trends thus far are favouring the BJP, with the alliance between the SP, BSP and RLD still trailing the ruling BJP by several seats.