New Delhi: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is leading, with over 48,000 votes in his favour, from the party bastion of Karhal, according to trends available on the Election Commission of India’s website at 12.30 pm..
Right now, he has a comfortable hold over the seat, with 67.15 per cent of the voteshare. The BJP’s S.P. Singh Baghel is trailing far behind, polling only 19,243 votes.
Considered to be a stronghold of the SP, Karhal is in Mainpuri district, and since 2007 has been represented by the SP’s Sobaran Singh Yadav.
It is not a surprise that the SP chief seems to have a comfortable hold over the seat. The Congress fielded Gyanvati Yadav, while the BSP fielded first-timer Kuldeep Narayan and the BJP put up Baghel, who while campaigning equated Akhilesh to Aurangzeb.
Located in Western Uttar Pradesh, Mainpuri has always been a stronghold of the party and the sitting Member of Parliament from the district is Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The SP won all four assembly seats from Mainpuri in 2012. However, in 2017, it managed to win only three of the four seats.
This assembly poll, Akhilesh had hoped to recover from the considerable blow the party suffered in the previous assembly elections — winning only 47 out of 403 seats in 2017, a sharp fall from the 224 seats it had won in 2012.
A day before counting, the former CM and SP chief told party workers to consider counting centres to be “holy places of democracy” and stay put there to ensure there was no foul play, after he alleged that EVMs were being stolen from Varanasi.
“The SP-alliance will win, that’s why the BJP is trying to rig the election,” he tweeted.
(Edited by Saikat Niyogi)
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