UP election results 2014 LIVE: Varanasi even endorsed my silence, says Modi

5.51 pm: A smiling Rahul says Congress did ‘pretty badly’ Rahul Gandhi, smiling broadly, said that his party has performed ‘pretty badly’. “As the vice president of the party, I take complete responsibility of this defeat,” he said. Gandhi, however, was leading in Amethi at 6 pm. He had got 264788 votes, whereas Smriti Irani had bagged, 198500. 4.14 pm: Kejriwal settles for the love of ‘Kashi ki janta’ Arvind Kejriwal who got 129944 votes in comparison to Narendra Modi’s 388866, thanked the people of Varanasi for their ’love’. Looking definitely forlorn and weary, Kejriwal, who had so far declared that he is going to win against Modi, spoke to reporters. “This election was anyway not for us to fight. We didn’t have resources, we didn’t have money,” he said. “I respect people’s mandate and that’s how it should be in a democracy. There’s a strange churning in the country… it’s interesting, yet unpredictable… no one can say what’s happening and why,” he said. “We had given the country a platform for alternative politics. We will decide what to do next,” he declared. Clearly, Kejriwal had underestimated his opponent and the Modi ‘wave’ is making the reality even more difficult to swallow. 12.30 pm: AAP’s Kumar Vishwas congratulates Narendra Modi Kumar Vishwas, who headed to suffer a humiliating defeat in Amethi, was the first from AAP’s candidates to react to the polls. Vishwas tweeted at Narendra Modi congratulating him on his win and accepting what the nation’s mandate. https://twitter.com/DrKumarVishwas/status/467198733914869760 11.45 am: Modi wins Varanasi by more than 50,000 votes This is probably the the defining moment for the BJP. While Modi’s Vadodara win was on expected lines, Kejriwal’s decision to fight from Varanasi, almost queered the Gujarat CM’s pitch in the constituency. However, while Kejriwal seems to have grabbed more than 20,000 votes, Narendra Modi has wheezed past him, winning over 75,000 votes. In fact, the latest tally shows Narendra Modi has got 89780 votes, where as Kejriwal has managed to acquire 25282. Congress’ Ajai Rai, on the other hand, could get no more than 11041 votes. The Varanasi defeat comes to Kejriwal as a sharp reminder that in politics, overestimation is a dangerous flaw. While the AAP leader would want to see Congress and BJP as two sides of the same coin, the position of the parties in his ideology has little semblance to the reality, on ground. We had noted earlier on Firstpost, choosing Modi as his adversary was the last thing Kejriwal should have done, while he is trying to recover from his unfortunate Delhi outing and trying to launch a Lok Sabha poll campaign at the same time. Taking on Modi made him look complacent and immature - it almost seemed that his head was so full of his Delhi victory that he failed to see the clear differences in patterns in the two battles. Maybe AAP should take the UP snub as a lesson on the several loopholes in its politics and the pitfalls of being too ambitious.   11.00 am: Latest lead trends in key UP constituencies Amethi: Rahul Gandhi (Cong) - 18128, Smriti Irani (BJP) - 15835 Varanasi: Narendra Modi (BJP) - 38360, Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) - 13415 Azamgarh: Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP) - 9601, Ramakant Yadav (BJP)  - 9210 Ghaziabad: VK Singh (BJP) - 42138, Raj Babbar (Cong) - 5623, Shazia Ilmi (AAP) - 3411 Lucknow: Rajnath Singh (BJP) - 27415, Rita Bahuguna Joshi (Cong) - 11960 Mainpuri: Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP) - 124855, Shatrughan Sinha (BJP**) - 28261** Mathura: Hema Malini (BJP)  - 89739, Yogesh Dwivedi (BSP) - 25774 Rae Bareli: Sonia Gandhi (Cong) - 131555, Ajay Agarwal (BJP) - 43162 10.50 am: Rahul Gandhi and Smriti Irani locked in close battle, Kumar Vishwas trails far behind According to Election Commission data, Rahul Gandhi is ahead of Smriti Irani by roughly three thousand votes at present. At the moment this update was being filed, Rahul Gandhi had amassed 18128 votes and Irani, 15835. In third position was BSP and Kumar Vishwas came fourth with just a few votes over a 1000. 10.30 am: Varun Gandhi wins in Sultanpur, Maneka Gandhi leads in Pilibhit NDTV reports that Varun Gandhi has won in Sultanpur, whereas Maneka Gandhi has taken a lead in Pilibhit. The news comes alongside reports that Congress has conceded defeat and has declared that they are ready to sit in the Opposition. 10.10 am: BJP leads in 64 seats Latest lead tally: BJP - 64; SP  - 10; BSP - 3; Congress - 2 Source: UTV Uttar Pradesh While Congress’ lead tally nearly matches the exit polls which refused to give them more than ten seats, Maywati’s BSP  might turn out to be the biggest leader in Uttar Pradesh. Most exit polls had given Mayawati between 10-13 seats in the state suggesting that it might be on a decline but still won’t be a washout. However, Mayawati’s party seems all set to join Congress in the bottom of the poll barrel in UP. Mayawati’s poor show and Modi leading in Muslim-dominated areas in Varanasi show, at least in these polls, the caste and religion equation might have not worked in the expected pattern. Either Mayawati’s enthusiastic caste-specific pitch might be wearing out or Narendra Modi’s hard-selling of the development agenda has worked wonders on UP’s voter sentiments. 9.30 am: Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh wins from Baghpat In the first confirmed snub to the UPA, long-time ally and RLD leader Ajit Singh has been defeated in Baghpat, by first-time contestant, BJP’s Satyapal Singh. NDTV reports that BJP has won the constituency. Satyapal Singh, former IPS officer, retired as Mumbai’s police commissioner last year and joined the BJP. Singh, who was at the helm of the Mumbai Police when the infamous Shakti Mills gangrape took place in the heart of the city, had enraged women’s right activists and run into controversies with his opinions on moral policing. While taking questions from the media, post the gangrape of a young photojournalist in Central Mumbai, he had questioned the morality of youngsters who indulge in display of affection in public places like pubs. Suggesting that it is difficult to prevent sexual harassment if youngsters continue to cosy up to each other in public, Singh had said, “If we are doing moral policing, it is for the betterment of society. I think we have to strike a balance as to what kind of culture and society we want. We ourselves are confused. On one hand we want a culture of boyfriends and girlfriends kissing, and then on the other side we want a safer environment. Should we allow couples to kiss in public… should they be allowed to indulge in obscenity? We have to strike a balance. On the one hand you want to have a promiscuous culture and on the other hand you want a safe and secure environment for the people.” 9.25 am: Mulayam, Rahul take lead Mulayam does a Modi, Rahul overtakes Smriti Irani Mulayam Singh, who pulled a Modi on Uttar Pradesh by contesting from both Mainpuri and Azamgarh, is said to be leading in both the constituencies. Mulayam, cornered by both Modi and the Congress, following the Muzaffarnagar riots, threw the hat in the ring in Azamgarh to make sure the state completely doesn’t slip out of his hands. His calculations might just pay off given the broad leads he has taken. On the other hand, while Smriti Irani’s early lead in Amethi sent panic waves among Congress and cheer across a BJP-dominated social media, latest trends suggest he is back on the top as of now and has taken lead in the constituency. Latest lead tally: BJP - 39; SP - 5; BSP - 2; Congress - 5 9.05 am: Modi leading in Muslim areas? While it is difficult to say by exactly how many votes Modi is leading in Varanasi, an ETV reporter tried to put things in perspective. He reports if the trends were to be predicted from the votes cast on one EVM, then Modi is definitely in the lead. “Results of one EVM, which I got access to showed that Modi got 149 votes, Congress’ Ajai Rai 49 and Kejriwal 29,” he said. He then added that the strangest aspect of the outcome is that the EVM was from Lallapur - a Muslim dominated area in Varanasi. So have Varanasi’s Muslims bitten Modi’s development bait, despite his rapturous ‘Maa Ganga’ rhetoric? If the results of one EVM is anything to go by, they have! 8.54: All prominent BJP leaders are leading n Uttar Pradesh Latest reports suggest that Murli Manohar Joshi is ahead of former Congress minister Sriprakash Jaiswal in Kanpur. That must have come as a relief for the BJP  which moved Joshi out from his usual seat Varanasi, to make him contest from Kanpur. SP’s Dimple Yadav is said to be leading by 8,000 votes in Kannauj. Latest lead tally: BJP -21; Congress - 5; SP - 3 8.45 am: BJP’s Yogi Adityanath leads in Gorakhpur 8.40 am: Who is leading in Amethi? There seems to be a fair amount of confusion over who is leading in Amethi. While most news outlets have declared that Rahul Gandhi is leading in Amethi and Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli, ETV UP, says that Smriti Irani has taken the lead in the constituency. However, going by the sheer number of reports claiming Rahul is leading, it is possibly safe to assume that he is in the lead in the constituency. 8.30 am: “Vikas hi vikas hoga,” says Hema Malini BJP should thank its lucky stars that there is a Narendra Modi to make up for every Hema Malini in the party. It should also feel thankful that not many bother to listen to what Hema Malini says, except gawking at her. Because she is literally a walking and talking disaster. Speaking to ETV Uttar Pradesh, Hema Malini says, “I won’t have the seat always right? I am here now, someone else will have it later…” Not the best thing to say on the eve of the poll results right? Asked what she plans to do for her constituency, Hema Malini, blithely points at Modi. “If Modi ji is here, there will be development all around. There will be a lot of development.” When the reporter asks ‘what kind of development’, she is almost taken aback. “Safai honi chahiye … (Mathura should be cleaned)… ,” she says as the dumbfounded reporter looks on. However, she quickly tries to get her act together. “I will do a lot of work. Roads have to be taken care of. Also electricity and water…,” she trails off. 8.20 am: In Varanasi, Modi has taken a lead on Arvind Kejriwal Latest tally from the state shows that the BJP is leading in 6 seats, Congress in one and Samajwadi Party in 1. The seats on which BJP is leading includes Agra, Barabanki, Jhansi, Varanasi and Lucknow among others. In Kannauj, Akhikesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav is leading. 8.10 am: First leads in. In Kannuaj, Dimple Yadav, VK Singh lead According to ETV UP, in Kannauj, Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav is leading in the first half of counting for the constituency. BJP’s Gen VK Singh is ahead of Congress Raj Babbar in Ghaziabad and AAP’s Shazia Ilmi in Ghaziabad - in that order. 7.34 am: Meanwhile, posters congratulating Modi surfaces in Varanasi  Narendra Modi’s fans have already put up billboards congratulating their leader in Varanasi.NDTV reports: “The party has also installed six huge massive LED screens at important intersections to broadcast televised coverage of the counting of results." And in Kanpur, where Murli Manohar Joshi is BJP’s candidate, the party has already brought out the laddoos. One wonders what the party will do, once the results are announced, given that EC has banned victory processions in Varanasi. 7.20 am: Is UP going to vote in a Modi sarkar? The Uttar Pradesh BJP Twitter handles enthusiasm is probably not completely unfounded - we have noted the reasons below. https://twitter.com/BJP4UP/status/466798226406789120 Meanwhile, Amit Shah, was busy doing his job - that is making Narendra Modi’s job easier. He tweeted out a link of an article, where the BJP has issued an open invitation to possible allies. Given Modi’s Mamata and Jaya debacle, it’s possibly Amit Shah to do the necessary damage control. Narendra Modi, meanwhile, seemed to be already at the job - that Prime Minister’s that is. Yesterday, he launched an app which would help youths track the upcoming government jobs and the processes to apply for it. Though the app caters to Gujarat as of now, it’s easy to read between the lines and figure out what he is hinting at. 7.00 am: Round-up of the most-watched battles in Uttar Pradesh Baghpat: The seat is at present held by RLD leader Ajit Singh, also a Congress ally. Singh is a old war horse who has always come to help for the Congress. However, former Mumbai Police commissioner Satyapal Singh is slated to give him a tough fight in his home-ground, thanks to the Modi wave. Ghaziabad: The seat will witness one of the most interesting fights of this season. BJP’s General VK Singh is all set to lock horns with AAP’s Shazia Ilmi. While Singh has a clear edge - given that the seat is a BJP bastion held by Rajnath Singh till date - Ilmi too left no stone upturned. In fact, in her extreme enthusiasm to win the poll battle, she left her party red-faced when a video of her, exhorting Muslim leaders to be less secular, was released on YouTube. Ghaziabad’s proximity to Delhi is also a reason for the BJP to worry, the party can only hope that there is no spillover of Delhi’s sentiments for AAP in the constituency. [caption id=“attachment_1525339” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The key Uttar Pradesh contenders.[/caption] Varanasi: The mother of all battles, Varanasi will be the epicentre of the elections 2014. Here, Arvind Kejriwal has dared Narendra Modi in a BJP lair. Congress, feeling left out, has pitched Ajay Rai, who has taken help from his brother’s murder-accused Mukhtar Ansari to make an impression. Will we see a Sheila Dikshit-like upset in this seat? Amethi: So, BJP candidate Smriti Irani queered the pitch for AAP candidate Kumar Vishwas in this constituency. According to reports, Vishwas had been making definite inroads in Amethi, coaxing people to speak up and breaking their Gandhi reverie. And then Irani landed on Amethi with a thud. All his hard-work experts say, are now coming to use to Irani. Either which way, they make fir a very worried Rahul Gandhi. Azamgarh: Samajwadi Party chieftain Mulayam Singh Yadav had decided to fight the elections from Azamgarh, quite unapologetically playing to the Muslim gallery. However, he is up against BJP’s sitting MP Ramakant Yadav. What the exit polls have indicated The results of the Lokniti-CSDS exit polls, conducted for CNN IBN_,_ shows that the BJP’s vote share could jump by a 22.5 percent from its actual vote share in the 2009 polls. Compared to just 17.5 percent votes in 2009, the IBN exit polls show that the BJP could amass almost 40 percent of the state’s votes, followed by Samajwadi Party which could get up to 24 percent votes. However, one has to note here that the SP is hardly losing its old ground, given that it got around 23.5 percent of the state’s votes in 2009. Unless, all the country’s psephologists have got their seat-math wrong, BJP is going to wash over Uttar Pradesh, clinching more than half its seats. The Times Now-ORG polls indicated that BJP will get 52 seats, Congress 10 seats, BSP 6 and SP, 12 seats. The Lokniti-CSDS exit polls are willing to give anything between 45 to 53 seats to the BJP. In 2009, the party managed to get just 10 seats. The Congress-RLD alliance which secured 21 seats in 2009, will be reduced to single digits, between 3-5 seats. SP might get 13-17 seats and the BSP 10-14 seats. ABP News, predicts 46 seats for the BJP. In 2009, the party had managed to clinch just 10 seats, compared to the 21 that UPA had. ABP gives the Congress just 8 seats, where as SP and BSP get 12 and 13 seats respectively. [caption id=“attachment_152023” align=“alignleft” width=“620”] Seat projections according to the Lokniti-CSDS poll tracker.[/caption] However, the AAP is in for a shock in Uttar Pradesh, according to the exit polls. None of the exit polls have given a single seat to AAP, though the party decided to contest from 76 of UP’s 80 seats. Though the Aam Aadmi Party has pitched its strongest candidates in Uttar Pradesh this year, it seems that its dreams of debuting in Uttar Pradesh might not materialise this year, at least. The ABP Nielsen survey predicts that AAP will get no seat in Uttar Pradesh. The primary reason why AAP will be a wash-out in UP this term, probably has to do with the opponents its most popular candidates have chosen. The importance of Uttar Pradesh why BJP turned the state into its bunker To repeat a cliche, all roads indeed led to Uttar Pradesh in these polls. Apart from the usual suspects - the extended Gandhi family for example - the most popular leaders of most other parties decided to troop into UP to try their luck. So, BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, apart from contesting in Vadodara, dropped his anchor in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Buoyed by his feat against Sheila Dikshit, AAP chief Arvind Kerjiwal too decided to  dare Narendra Modi in Varanasi, making the seat the most hotly contested one this year. Congress, understandably feeling left out, pitched a local - Ajay Rai. In a desperate scramble for votes, Rai accepted the backing of Mukhtar Ansari, the man accused of plotting the murder of his own brother! With 80 seats, Uttar Pradesh had always served as the main course in the poll platter of India. Not very long ago, it was considered that the way to India’s top was through Uttar Pradesh, until 1991. PV Narsimha Rao formed a Congress government at the centre despite the party winning just five seats in UP. However, the Narendra Modi-led BJP had anchored its resurgence in Uttar Pradesh. Modi addressed more than ten rallies in UP, where BJP’s fortunes had been on a wane since the 1998 polls. The BJP had won handsomely in Uttar Pradesh securing more than 50 seats in elections held in 1991, 1996 and 1998. However, in 2009, it managed to bag just ten seats. Given the existence of the anti-incumbency wave against the Congress, which was further strengthened by the results of the state elections held in 2013, it was clear to the BJP that a campaign should be hinged on Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh, like no other state, presented the BJP with a host of issues they could challenge the government in power with. Since the government at the state was also not an ally or even a potential ally, the party, with Narendra Modi at helm could shine as a perfect foil to the SP, BSP and the Congress. And shine, it did. BJP pointed at the several ailments UP is fraught with as a paradigm for the larger national picture. From Amethi, considered a district with high poverty level to UP’s Bundelkhand region reeling under water shortage and resultant difficulties in practicing agriculture, Modi’s development plank would ideally resonate the most with UP and also send out echos from there. In the initial stages of his campaign, Modi relentlessly critiqued the Samajwadi Party government and the preceding BSP government’s lack of development ideas, leaving districts in Uttar Pradesh the most impoverished in the country. He pointed out that the most number of migrant labourers in the country come from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, suggesting that the lack of development and consequently, livelihoods have forced hordes of people out of the states. Apart from testing his Gujarat model of development in unfamiliar waters, at least verbally, Uttar Pradesh provided Modi with the yet another issue which holds the power to influence voter sentiments en masse - religion. On the back of the Muzaffarnagar riots, in which the SP government failed miserably to act on time, leaving more than 40 Muslims and some Jats dead, Modi could conveniently point an accusing finger at the many failures of parties which wear ‘secularism’ on their sleeves and sell their politics on the idea that their policies don’t discriminate against Muslims. In UP, Modi could also try grappling the Muslim issue - usually considered his Achilles’ heel. What’s the point of calling yourself ‘secular’ if you can’t protect the Muslims, Modi seems to have asked in his several addresses in Uttar Pradesh. On the other hand, he decided to fight from Varanasi, spending more attention on the constituency than his other constituency - Vadorara in Gujarat. In Varanasi, Modi played right to the Hindu galleries even spouting the customary platitudes for ‘Maa Ganga’. “I have not come to Varanasi, Maa Ganga has brought me here,” he declared while filing his nomination, as crowds went berserk chanting ‘har har Modi’ and welcoming what seemed like their new God - the Hindu hero. Then, there are the complicated caste equations in Uttar Pradesh which makes designing a foolproof poll pitch in the state a highly complicated one. However, Narendra Modi has mostly played it well, make a successful lunge at the lower caste votes. The upper castes have traditionally sided with the BJP. In a masterstroke, Modi emphatically referred to himself as someone from a ’neech jaati’ in the penultimate leg of the polls. In Amethi, he gave Priyanka Gandhi’s ’neech rajneeti’ (low level politics) jibe to make it look like a taunt against his caste - Modi is a OBC but had mostly refrained from using his caste to leverage his campaign. His Congress vs BJP battle, made out to look like the privileged versus the disenfranchised battle, got that necessary fillip with Modi referring to his caste. Lastly, Uttar Pradesh is also where Narendra Modi’s biggest rivals fight from - Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli and Rahul Gandhi from Amethi. A direct fight with the Gandhis hold the potential of inciting the most delirious voter reaction and fighting from the same state is the closest Modi would have come to doing that.