Guwahati: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is set to return to power for a second term as the Bharatiya Janata Party is heading towards a landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh.
While CM Yogi was confident of winning over 300 seats, the opposition’s attempt to latch onto the farmer’s protest — highlighting the Jat anger in the western belt — has failed too.
Early numbers show that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has crossed the halfway mark. The saffron party, led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, is looking to retain power in Uttar Pradesh.
Data shared by the Election Commission on round 1 of counting shows that Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav is leading in his constituency, Karhal, and BJP’s SP Singh Baghel is second.
While exit polls have predicted a victory for the ‘double-engine’ government of BJP, the state has not returned a government to power since 1985. SP in alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal put up a fierce battle, drawing support from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Some of the constituencies to watch out for include: Rae Bareli — a Congress bastion — where sitting MLA Aditi Singh switched over from the Congress to BJP; Lucknow, the heart of UP politics; Varanasi, the Parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi; and Sirathu, where deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya is up against SP’s Pallavi Patel.
