UP Lok Sabha results: Congress played ‘vote katuwa’ to SP-BSP alliance 

LUCKNOW: SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati who decided to cobble their alliance keeping the Congress tactically and cautiously out may be repenting today as the poll figures indicate that had Congress been a part of gathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh, it would have been more formidable impacting the outcome of at least 10 seats.

Though the overall percentage of alliance (38.62%) and Congress (6.3%) put together accounts for 44.92% against BJP’s total vote share of 49.56%, but on seats like Barabanki, Baduan, Banda, Basti, Dhaurahra, Meerut, Sultanpur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Machhlishahr and Firozabad,  alliance and Congress combined votes are higher than those of the BJP’s winners.

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As per the present scenario, on these seats the Congress, in all probability, played ‘vote katuwa’ for alliance candidates instead of BJP. In fact, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi had created  flutter by claiming in the middle of her campaign that she had fielded such candidates who, if not win, would dent BJP’s prospects and benefit the alliance.

• Barabanki: SP candidate Ram Sagar Rawat lost to the BJP candidate Upendra Singh Rawat by 1,10,140 votes while Congress candidate and party’s senior leader PL Punia’s son Tanuj got 1, 59,611 votes.  Punia is the son of senior Congress leader PL Punia, who lost the seat in 2014. If Punia’s vote share was added to SP’s Ram Sagar Rawat’s 4,25,77, BJP’s Upendra Rawat would have fell short by over by 49,000 votes.
   
• Badaun: While SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav polled 4,92,898 votes against BJP’s Sangh Mitra Maurya who got 5,11,352 votes and won the seat by a margin of 18,454 votes. Yadav may have been a winner if the Congress candidate Salim Iqbal Sherwani’s 51,947 votes were added to his account. Sherwani made a major dent to alliance Muslim vote bank in the constituency.
   
• Banda: Shyama Charan Gupta of Samajwadi Party secured 4,18,988 and lost the seat by a margin of 58,553 to BJP’s RK Singh Patel who got 4,77,926 votes. However, Congress candidate Bal Kumar Patel got 75, 438 votes which, if added to Gupta’s share, would have let him sail through by a margin of 16,500 votes.
   
• Basti: BSP’s RP Chaudhary polled 4,40808 votes against BJP’s Harish Dwivedi who secured 4,71,162 votes. Congress’s Raj Kishor Singh got 86,920 votes which if added to Chaudhary’s vote share would have led to his victory by a margin of 56,566 votes.
   
• Dhaurahra: In this Congress bastion, BJP’s Rekha Verma drubbed her nearest rival BSP’s Arshad Iliyas Siddiqui by a margin of 160,601 votes. Congress’ candidate and former union minister Jitin Prasada secured 1,62,856 votes here. The alliance or the Congress candidate would have won the seat if only one of them had contested. If Jitin’s vote share was added Siddiqui’s  3,52,294, he would have won though only a slender margin of 2,245 votes.
   
• Meerut: It was a ding-dong battle till last. BSP candidate Haji Mohammad Yaqub, with 5,81,455 votes, lost the plot to the BJP’s Rajendra Agarwal by 2,379 votes. Agarwal got 5,86184 votes. If Congress’s share of 34,479  was added to Qureshi’s votes, BJP candidate would have been defeated by over 29,000 votes.
   
• Machhlishahr: It was the curious case of lowest margin in the country wherein BJP’s Bholanath won the seat by just 181 votes against BSP’s T Ram. Congress-supported Jan Adhikar Party polled about 7000 votes. If JAP votes were added to the alliance’s tally, it would have made BSP candidate sail through.
   
• Sultanpur: BJP’s Maneka Gandhi faced a tough battle here. She emerged victorious by polling 459196 votes against her nearest rival Chandrabhadra Singh of BSP who got 4,44,670 and lost the seat to BJP by a margin of 14526 votes. If Congress Sanjay Sinh’s votes – 41,681-- are added to Singh’s share, he would have won 27,155 votes.
   
• Sant Kabir Nagar: It would have been a lost battle for the BJP’s Pravin Nishad who got 4,64,22 votes and defeated his nearest rival BSP’s  Bhishma Shankar by a margin of 35,461 votes. If Congress’s Bhal Chandra Yadav’s vote share of  127488 would have added to the account of alliance candidate, BJP’s Nishad would have lost the seat by a huge margin of over 92,000 votes. Here Congres made a major dent to alliance prospects.
   
• Firozabad: The split in SP votes led to the victory of the BJP candidate Dr Chandra Sen Jadon. Samajwadi Party candidate Akshaya Yadav and his uncle PSP (L) chief Shivpal Singh Yadav’s votes if put together were higher than the votes of the winner.