Out of the nine Assembly seats in Capital Lucknow, BJP won seven – only a seat less than its 2017 poll tally. The Samajwadi Party, which at one point of time was leading in three seats, manage to win only two, bettering its 2017 tally by only one seat. 🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to access the best Election reporting and analysis 🗞️ BJP minister Ashutosh Tandon ‘Gopal Ji’ won with the highest margin of 68,731 votes in Lucknow East — a seat held by the BJP for long. BJP's Rajeshwar Singh, the former joint director of Enforcement Directorate who took voluntary retirement just ahead of the election, won from Sarojini Nagar, defeating his SP rival Abhishek Mishra by over 56,000 votes. In Malihabad, BJP’s sitting MLA Jai Devi defeated SP's Surendra Kumar with a margin of around 8,000 votes. In 2017, she had won with a better margin of over 22,000 votes. Jai Devi is wife of Union Minister and Mohanlalganj MP Kaushal Kishore. In Mohanlalganj segment, BJP’s Amresh Kumar defeated SP’s former MP Sushila Saroj with a margin of 17,000 votes. Saroj got 36.84 per cent votes. In 2017, SP’s Ambrish Pushkar had won the seat and his vote share was 32.67 per cent. While SP lost the seat, it improved its voteshare. The BJP received a setback in Lucknow Central, which it had won in 2017. SP's Ravidas Mehrotra defeated BJP's Rajnish Gupta by 10,953 votes. Another seat that went into SP's kitty is Lucknow West where Armaan Khan defeated BJP's Anjani Kumar Srivastav by 8,184 votes. Khan runs security agency and also real estate business. The BJP also won Lucknow North, where Neeraj Bora defeated SP’s Pooja Shukla by over 33, 953 votes. At one time, Shukla, who was arrested for waving black flag at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, was leading in the polls. Bakshi ka Talab also went to BJP. Yogesh Shukla defeated SP's Gomti Yadav by over 27,000 votes. In the National Capital Region of Uttar Pradesh — Noida, Dadri, Jewar, Loni, Muradnagar, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, and Modi Nagar — the BJP has swept all the eight seats. In six of them, BJP candidates secured over 50% votes, signifying a clear wave in support of the party in NCR. The Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance failed to garner sufficient votes and came second in all eight seats. In Noida, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj Singh won by a record margin — polling 70% of the votes (2,44,319) votes— and defeating SP’s Sunil Choudhary, who secured 62,806 votes. Congress candidate Pankhuri Pathak came a distant third with 13,494 votes. Pankaj Singh said the “win is dedicated to the people of Noida”. “My goal has always been, and will be, to work for development and good governance. People have voted for development and the transparency of Yogiji’s government. This time, we will make UP a perfect state.” In Ghaziabad, BJP’s Atul Garg secured close to 60% votes and defeated SP’s Vishal Verma who polled around 20% votes. In Jewar, where the upcoming international airport was touted by the BJP as being among its big infrastructure projects, party candidate Dhirendra Singh defeated RLD’s Avtar Singh Bhadana.
