BJP, ally maintain grip over reserved LS seats in UP

The BJP and its ally maintained their grip over 15 of the 17 reserved seats in Uttar Pradesh but conceded two to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

In the 2014 general election, the saffron party had won all the 17 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) in the state which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha.

While in 2009, 10 reserved seats went to the Samajwadi Party, whereas the Congress, the BSP and the BJP got two seats each with one seat going to the Rashtriya Lok Dal.

The two seats which the BSP managed to snatch were-- Nagina (SC) and Lalganj (SC).

In the Nagina (SC) constituency, BSP candidate Girish Chandra defeated BJP's Yashwant Singh, while in Lalganj (SC) constituency, BSP's Sangeeta Azad beat BJP's Neelam Sonker.

On the remaining 15 seats, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates humbled their nearest rivals.

Interestingly, the Macchlishahr seat witnessed a tough contest with BSP's Tribhuvan Ram losing by a razor thin margin of just 181 votes to BJP's Bholanath.

On the Bulandshahr seat, BJP's Bhola Singh defeated BSP's Yogesh Verma, while in Hathras, Rajveer Diler of the BJP defeated SP's Ram Ji Lal Suman.

On the Shahjahanpur seat, BJP's Arun Kumar Sagar got the better of his nearest contender BSP's Amar Chandra Jauhar and in Hardoi, BJP's Jay Prakash defeated SP's Usha Verma.

Likewise, BJP's Ashok Kumar Rawat defeated BSP's Neelu Satyarthi on the Misrikh seat, while in Mohanlalganj, BJP's Kaushal Kishore trounced BSP's C L Verma by about 57,577 votes.

On the Etawah seat, BJP's Ramashankar Katheriya beat SP's Kamlesh Kumar, whereas on the Jalaun seat, BJP's Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma defeated BSP's Ajay Singh Pankaj.

Kaushambi seat was bagged by BJP's Vinod Kumar Sonkar defeating SP's Indrajeet Saroj and the Barabanki seat went to BJP's Upendra Rawat who defeated SP's Ram Sagar Rawat.

On the Bahraich seat, BJP's Aksharwar Lal won by defeating SP's Shabbir Valmiki whereas the Bansgaon seat was pocketed by BJP's Kamlesh Paswan who beat BSP's Sadal Prasad.

On the Agra seat, BJP's Satyapal Singh Baghel beat BSP's Manoj Kumar Soni and the Robertsganj seat went to BJP ally Apna Dal (S) candidate Pakauri Lal Kol who defeated SP's Bhai Lal.