Uttar Pradesh election results: BJP bags both SC-reserved seats of Allahabad

The BJP on Saturday won by huge margins the Bara and Koraon assembly seats in Allahabad, both reserved for Scheduled Castes, making it clear that the party has made inroads into the “Dalit vote bank”. BJP candidate Rajmani won Koraon by a stunning margin of about 54,000 votes while Bara was retained by Dr Ajay Kumar for the party.

Kumar had won the seat as a Samajwadi Party candidate five years ago but he switched over to the BJP a couple of months before the polls were announced. Kumar defeated his nearest rival Ajay of the Samajwadi Party by a comprehensive margin of 34,000 votes.

The BSP finished a distant third in both the seats even though it had bagged Koraon in 2012 despite facing a strong anti-incumbency wave. Discord among pre-poll allies SP and Congress had come to the fore in both these seats with both parties ending up fielding their candidates.

However, in neither seat did the total number of votes polled by nominees of both the parties come close to the tally of the winning BJP candidates.