The safety belt for the Congress party and Gandhis in Uttar Pradesh just snapped. In the 15 assembly seats under their traditional three Lok Sabha bastions of Rae Bareli, Amethi and Sultanpur, the Congress was completely wiped out in Rae Bareli and Sultanpur. The party did manage to save face in Amethi with likely wins in the Jagdishpur and Gauriganj assembly seats. In many of the assembly seats under these three Lok Sabha constituencies, the party was placed way behind in the fourth or fifth positions, as in Sultanpur and Sadar for instance.[caption id=“attachment_236192” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A big fall. Naresh Sharma/Firstpost”]
[/caption] In Sultanpur, Congress candidate Sandeep Tiwari received 7,867 votes against Anoop Sanda from the Samajwadi Party who was way ahead with 42,319 when this report was filed. In Rae Bareli, Congress’ Avadhesh Bahadur Singh got 19,151 votes while Akhilesh Kumar Singh of the Peace Party led with 47,689 votes. The counting is still on. At Lambhua assembly in Sultanpur Lok Sabha constituency, Santosh from Samajwadi Party got a whopping 74,347 votes. Congress candidate Rajesh Kumar Gautam could manage only 6,881 votes. Rahul Gandhi represents Amethi in the Lok Sabha while Congress president Sonia Gandhi represents the Rae Bareli in the Lower House of Parliament. Sanjay Singh of the Congress represents Sultanpur in the Lok Sabha. The leading/results status of 15 assembly seats in the Rae Bereli, Amethi and Sultanpur Lok Sabha constituencies (as of 3pm):

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