Western UP: Gathbandhan wrests 5 seats from BJP, RLD draws blank

The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party together wrested five seats from the BJP in western Uttar Pradesh in this Lok Sabha election but the third constituent of the alliance, the RLD, drew a blank.

The Rashtriya Lok Dal, said to have had a considerable influence on many of the 22 Lok Sabha seats in the region, did not win any of the three seats it contested.

The BJP lost Amroha, Bijnor, Moradabad, Nagina and Rampur to SP and BSP, but retained Agra, Aligarh, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar and others in western UP, according to Election Commission data.

Overall the BJP won 62 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, down from its jaw-dropping victory on 73 seats in 2014, while BSP got 10, SP five, Apna Dal (S) two and Congress one, the data showed.

RLD president Jayant Chaudhary lost from Baghpat in a close fight with sitting MP and BJP leader Satyapal Singh, while his father and party patron Ajit Singh was defeated in Muzaffarnagar by the saffron party's Sanjeev Balyan.

Jayant Chaudhary lost by 23,502 votes and his father was defeated by 6,526 votes.

In 2014 polls, the RLD chief lost from Mathura while his father was defeated from Baghpat.

RLD, which once wielded stronghold in western UP due to its influence on Jats and farmers, had fielded its third candidate Kunwar Narendra Singh from Mathura, where he was crushed by BJP's Hema Malini by a margin of 2.93 lakh votes.

In Amroha, BSP's Kunwar Danish Ali defeated sitting MP BJP's Kanwar Singh Tanwar by a margin of 63,248 votes. Tanwar had in 2014 won 5.28 lakh votes from the seat.

In Bijnor, BSP's Malook Nagar defeated BJP's Raja Bharatendra Singh by a margin of 69,941 votes. In 2014, Singh had defeated Nagar by getting 4.86 lakh votes.

In Moradabad, SP's S T Hasan beat BJP's Kunwar Sarvesh Kumar by a margin of 97,878 votes. In 2014, Kumar had polled 4.8 lakh votes.

In Nagina, BSP's Girish Chandra defeated sitting MP BJP's Yashwant Singh by a margin of 1.66 lakh votes. Singh had raked in 3.67 lakh votes in 2014.

In Rampur, SP's Azam Khan defeated BJP's Jaya Prada by a margin of over 1.09 lakh votes. In 2014, BJP's Nepal Singh had won the seat with 3.58 lakh votes.

The Congress failed to open its account in western UP yet again.

Congress UP unit chief Raj Babbar lost to BJP's Rajkumar Chahar in Fathepur Sikri by a margin of 4.95 lakh votes, the EC data showed.

In western UP, the BJP has retained Agra, Aligarh, Aonla, Badaun, Bareilly, Bulandshahr, Etah, Firozabad, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Hathras, Kairana, Meerut.

Results for the Lok Sabha 2019 elections held in seven phases across the country were announced Thursday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party candidates winning 302 out of 542 seats that went to polls.