It was a nail-biting finish in Meerut

MEERUT: Meerut witnessed an intense contest with the BJP and BSP Lok Sabha candidates trying to edge each other out on Thursday. BJP’s Rajendra Agarwal eventually won. He polled 586,184 to his BSP rival Yakub Qureshi’s 581,455.
With the ‘gathbandhan’ fielding a Muslim candidate, there were signs of 'polarization' among the voters. With the 2011 census showing that Meerut has 36.05 % Muslims, Qureshi got nearly 47.8% of the total vote share while Agarwal edged him out with 48.19%.
Thursday’s tussle in Meerut was so intense that in the final round of counting as soon as leads started emerging in favour of the BJP, the party workers erupted in widespread celebrations outside the counting centre.
However, soon after, BSP raised objection over the sudden announcement of the winner. The counting then had to be stalled. Qureshi’s son Bhura alleged that the BJP had declared its victory even before the counting process was completed. Later, district administration authorities had to intervene and pacify party members saying that the counting was indeed pending and they had not declared anybody as the winner.
“As many as 5,000 votes were still left for counting when the people declared Rajendra Agarwal’s victory. In fact, even as the counting process was yet to be completed, the police, too, left the spot. This is even when we were sure that we could win by 4,500 votes,” said Qureshi’s son Bhura. Soon, the counting of votes was stopped for at least two hours and Qureshi, too, reached the spot.
It was only later that the counting resumed and results were declared at 8:20 pm on Thursday.