In a significant twist, the BJP on Tuesday looked unlikely to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha as the Congress-led INDIA coalition appeared set to register an emphatic performance.
As of now, the INDIA coalition was leading on 225 seats while the BJP-led NDA was leading on 300 seats in the 543-seat parliament. A coalition or a party needs just 273 for a simple majority.
The development has come as a huge blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was hoping to cross 400 seats and enjoy a two-third majority in the parliament.
This year’s Lok Sabha polls were conducted in seven phases over a period of 50 days.
KEY DEVELOPMENT:
- BJP’s tally is down to 33 from 62 that it won in Uttar Pradesh in 2019.
- Smriti Irani is trailing by more than 78,000 votes against Kishori Lal of the Congress in Amethi
- Industrialist Naveen Jindal is leading by more than 8,000 votes against AAP’s Sushil Gupta in Kurukshetra.
- Actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar is leading from Gurgaon by against Rao Inderjeet Singh of the BJP by more than 7,000 votes.
- Arun Govil of the BJP, who played the character of Lord Ram in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan TV series, is trailing behind Samajwadi Party’s Sunita Verma in Meerut.
- In Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, Congress’s Shashi Tharoor is trailing behind BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar. (UPDATE: Tharoor has taken the lead now)
- In Faizabad, the place where Ram Temple was built, BJP’s Lallu Singh is trailing behind Samajwadi Party’s Awadhesh Prasad by close to 5,000 votes.
- In Jammu and Kashmir, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti is trailing behind Mian Altaf Ahmed of the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference in the Anantnag-Rajouri constituency. (UPDATE: Mufti is defeated)
- National Conference’s Omar Abdullah was trailing behind Abdul Rashid Sheikh in Baramulla by more than 121,000. (UPDATE-Omar Abdullah concedes defeat)
- Narendra Modi, who won Varanasi by more than 4.8 lakhs in 2019 is now leading by just over 117,000 votes.