Winning margin less than 35,000 in 34 constituencies

LUCKNOW: The battle for UP was prestigious at every single seat in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections but 34 of total 80 constitunecies saw a close fight with margins less than 35,000 votes. While in six seats the margin was under 10,000, vote difference in four was below 15,000, in seven just 20,000, in seven it was 25,000 and in five around 30,000. There were five other seats where tie was decided with 30-35,000 votes, which in Lok Sabha polls is not a convincing margin, considering that every constituency has over 15 lakh voters. The closest fight was witnessed in Chandauli where BSP candidate Kailash Nath Singh Yadav lost to SP's Ramkishun by a margin of just 459 votes. While Yadav polled 1,79,655 votes, Kishun walked to glory with 1,80,114 votes. The drift of Muslim votes towards the Congress candidate Shailendra Kumar, who polled, 97,377 votes, apart from smaller parties with Dalit base like the Republican Party of India (2,699) and the Indian Justice Party (1,934), spoiled party for sitting MP Yadav. Interestingly, in an equally close fight in 2004, Yadav had polled over 2 lakh votes and defeated his nearest rival by a margin of 1,669 votes. Region-wise, the 30 seats of west UP and Bundelkhand saw the closest fight with 11 constituencies seeing the winning margins less than 30,000 votes. In Aonla, BJP's Maneka Gandhi registered a win with a margin of just 7,681 votes, despite communal polarisation of votes in neighbouring Pilibhit, the seat left by Maneka for her son Varun, BJP's new hindutava mascot. Aonla saw a three way contest as Congress was not in fray. Three time MP Sarvraj Singh, contesting on BSP ticket slipped to third place this time. However, spilt of Muslim votes between SP and the BSP lead to defeat of SP candidate Dharmendra Kumar. Varun factor spoiled BJP's equation in Bareilly where six time MP Santosh Gangwar lost to Congress's Pravin Singh Aron by 9,338 votes. Gangwar's winning combination used to be upper castes and backward votes with Muslim votes splitting between SP and other Muslim candidates. In 2004, BSP's Akbar Ahmad Dumpy secured 2.10 lakh votes, Aron 1.91 lakh and SP's Islam Sabir 1.20 lakh votes in comparison to Gangawar's 2.69 lakh. But this time Aron got a chunk of Muslim votes increasing his count to 2.20 lakh. At the same time SP's Bhagwat Saran Gangwar cut into BJP's Kurmi-Lodh votes by polling 73,549 votes. In Agra, what went against BSP was a strong anti-incumbency factor which led to poor turnout of Dalit voters. Upper castes played a decisive role. BJP's Baliram won by polling 2.03 lakh votes defeating BSP's Kunwar Chand by 9,715 votes. Raj Babbar, sitting MP from Agra, shifted to Fatehpur Sikri after Agra became a reserved seat but lost by a margin of 9,936 votes to BSP's Seema Upadhyaya, wife of energy minister Ramveer Upadhyaya, who in last one year had started several development projects in this area keeping in mind his wife's candidature. Babbar's glamour also did not work in this rural seat. In Kheri, Congress's Zafar Ali Naqvi pulled up a major victory by defeating two sitting MPs Iliaz Azmi and Ravi Prakash Verma, although the victory margin was only 8,777 votes. Azmi had won from Shahabad last time and Verma from Kheri. Azmi shifted to Kheri after delimitation dissolved Shahabad and merged some of its parts in Kheri. But there was strong anti-incumbent both against Azmi and Verma. Because of his clean image, Naqvi got support of all the classes, which included Muslim, Dalits and upper castes. Loan waiver and National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme by UPA government also helped the Congress. In Farrukhabad, which witnessed the war of titans, Congress's Salman Khurshid defeated BSP's Naresh Agarwal by 27,199 votes. In Badaun, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's nephew Dharmendra Yadav could win by only 32,542 by defeating BSP's DP Yadav. Other bigwigs who won by small margins included Shafiqur Rehman Barq from Sambhal (13,464); Raj Kumari Chauhan, wife of minister Thakur Jaiveer Singh from Aligarh (16,557); Congress's Sri Prakash Jaiswal, union minister of state for home, from Kanpur (18,906); Beni Prasad Verma of Congress from Gonda (23,675) and BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi from Varanasi (17,211).
Courtesy - TOI 19 may