BJP breaches SP strongholds, AAP loses on Mann home turf

Three political citadels were breached on Sunday as BJP cracked the Muslim-Yadav code to wrest the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party while Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) overran Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann's stronghold Sangrur to obliterate AAP's footprint in the Lower House, barely 100 days after the party's assembly triumph in that very state.

Bhojpuri actor Dinesh Lal Yadav alias Nirahua won Azamgarh, vacated by Akhilesh, by just over 8,000 votes in a humdinger of a battle that kept see-sawing all day. BJP's Ghanshyam Lodhi, a recent import from the SP, won by 42,000-odd votes against veteran Azam Khan's man Friday Asim Raja in Rampur. Azamgarh district had given all 10 seats in the assembly polls earlier this year to the SP.
In Punjab, SAD(A)'s Simranjit Singh Mann defeated AAP's Gurmail Singh by 5,822 votes to script the day's third upset.
The former IPS officer had last won the seat, vacated by chief minister Bhagwant Mann after he became the Dhuri MLA, in 1999.