Election Results: Counting on, UP and Maharashtra Shocker to BJP-led NDA as of Now
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New Delhi: As the election results for the 18th Lok Sabha are still unfolding, the major upsets for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came from its two key strongholds – Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, where the tables seem to be turning for the INDIA bloc.
At the time of writing, the Narendra Modi-led BJP, which started its election campaign with the slogan of “Abki Baar 400 Paar”, was down 64 seats, at 239 seats (several rounds of counting are still pending) compared with its 2019 tally, which in itself is being seen a huge dent on ‘Brand Modi’ and a big hole in the BJP’s aim to have a ‘Congress-Mukt Bharat’. This even as the NDA is still poised to form a government for the third time, albeit in a truncated form.
As of 12.30, the early leads showed the NDA at 292, less 66 seats, while the INDIA bloc at 233, showing a gain of 114 seats. The Congress, which saw an unrelenting campaign on people’s issues led by the Rahul Gandhi-Mallikarjun Kharge team, seem to be gaining 454 seats, almost closes to touching the 10o mark as per early leads.
The biggest surprise was from UP, which has a total of 80 Lok Sabha seats, where the much-hyped Ram Mandir congregation led by Modi took place. The INDIA bloc (Samajwadi Party-Congress0 had overtaken the ruling BJP party there till 12.30. This after the BJP broke the INDIA bloc by wooing Rashtriya Lok Dal back via Modi announcing the Bharat Ratna for iconic farm leader Chaudhry Charan Singh.
In Maharashtra, too, the Maha Vikas Aghadi was doing very well despite the BJP engineering a split in two key parties – the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party.
The good news for BJP was coming in from Odisha, where the party had overtaken the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal in the trends for the Assembly polls as well as the Lok Sabha.
As the counting of several rounds is still left, the results so far have showed the complete sham generated by the exit polls that orchestrated a clear edge to the NDA, suggesting that BJP itself would improve its 2019 tally of 303 seats and some even sticking to the “400 Paar” slogan of the saffron party.
The trends so far also show that BJP’s communal and divisive campaign, led by hate speeches against Muslims by none other than the Prime Minister, as well as the Ram Mandir issue did not work as expected.
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