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Vajpayee, Joshi, Raj Babbar among early winners in UP

The Bharatiya Janata Party won two seats and was leading in 23 while the Congress bagged one and was leading in 10 as counting of votes in Uttar Pradesh progressed through the night.

But defying pre-election predictions, the Samajwadi Party won one seat and was leading in 23, a gain of five seats, while the Bahujan Samaj Party had established leads in 15, a gain of 11 seats. The Congress also was gaining 11 seats, having drawn a blank in the state in 1998.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi won two seats for the BJP as results from the four constituencies in Uttar Pradesh where electronic voting machines were used were declared first.

Samajwadi Party candidate and film star Raj Babbar won the Agra seat while Shreeprakash Jaiswal opened the account for the Congress in Kanpur.

Vajpayee defeated his nearest Congress rival, Dr Karan Singh, by 123,586 votes in a straight contest. This is the fourth time in a row that Vajpayee has won the seat.

Dr Joshi defeated his nearest Samajwadi Party rival, Reoti Raman Singh, by a margin of 70,752 votes in a triangular contest. This is the third time in succession that Joshi has won the seat.

But the overall picture for the BJP was not at all encouraging, and the party appeared set to lose 30 of the 57 seats it had won in 1998. It was projected to lose a vote share of 4.5 per cent while the Samajwadi Party was also projected to lose up to 7 per cent.

The constituencies in which the BJP is leading are Faizabad, Gonda, Basti (reserved), Tehri Garhwal, Garhwal, Almora, Bijnore, Bareilly, Mathura, Hathras (reserved), Khurja (reserved), Bulandshahr, Hapur, Fathpur, Bansgaon (reserved), Gorakhpur, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Hardwar (reserved), Maharajganj, Macchlishahr, Varanasi and Robertsganj (reserved).

Jaiswal won Kanpur by 34,459 votes against Jagatveer Singh Drone of the BJP. In the last Lok Sabha election, the Congress had been blanked out in Uttar Pradesh.

Some of the other seats in which the Congress was leading were Nainital, Rampur, Pratapgarh, Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jhansi and Muzaffarnagar.

The BSP was leading in Akbarpur (reserved), Amroha, Shahbad, Sitapur, Sultanpur, Bahraich, Ghosi, Lalganj (reserved), Chail (reserved), Banda, Jalaun (reserved), Bilhaur and Saharanpur.

The Samajwadi Party wrested Agra from the BJP when Babbar defeated his nearest rival, Bhagwan Shankar Rawat, by 112,982 votes. This was the first result to be announced in Uttar Pradesh this afternoon.

Meanwhile, as counting progressed for the other 81 seats, the BJP was leading in six, the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party in two each, and the Samajwadi Janata Party in one seat.

UNI

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