BJP breaches SP strongholds, AAP loses on Mann home turf

Akhilesh’s Forts Of Rampur And Azamgarh Fall

Three political citadelswere breached on Sun-day as BJP cracked the Muslim-Yadav code to wrest the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats in UP from Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party while Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) overran Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann’s stronghold Sangrur to obliterate AAP’s footprint in the Lower House, barely 100 days after the party’s assembly triumph in that very state.

Bhojpuri actor Dinesh Lal Yadav won Azamgarh, vacated by Akhilesh, by just over 8,000 votes in a humdinger of a battle that kept see-sawing all day. BJP’s Ghanshyam Lodhi, a recent import from SP, won by 42,000-odd votes against veteran Azam Khan’s man Friday Asim Raja in Rampur. Azamgarh district had given all 10 seats in the assembly polls earlier this year to SP.

SAD(A)’s Simranjit Singh Mann beat AAP’s Gurmail Singh by 5,822 votes to script the day’s third upset. The former IPS officer had last won the seat, vacated by Mann after he became Dhuri MLA, in 1999.

AAP retains Rajendra Nagar assembly seat

Aam Aadmi Party on Sun-day registered a decisive win in the Rajendra Nagar assembly bypoll, with its candidate Durgesh Pathak defeating BJP’s Rajesh Bhatia by nearly 11,500 votes, reports Sidhartha Roy.