Urban voters push BJP across the line in NCR
In Gautam Budh Nagar, voters helped re-elect incumbent MP Mahesh Sharma, with the BJP candidate winning by 559,472 votes — the largest margin in Uttar Pradesh
Urban voters in two parliamentary seats in the National Capital Region — Gurgaon and Ghaziabad — helped propel the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates to victory, data released by the Election Commission of India has revealed.
However, in Gautam Budh Nagar — the third NCR seat — urban voters helped re-elect incumbent MP Mahesh Sharma, with the BJP candidate winning by 559,472 votes — the largest margin in Uttar Pradesh.
In Gurgaon, BJP fends off Cong challenge
BJP candidate for the Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat Rao Inderjit Singh won the constituency for a fourth consecutive term, defeating his Congress opponent Raj Babbar by 75,079 votes.
As the counting of the votes began, Singh and Babbar were initially neck-to-neck, but by 2pm, Singh started pulling away. This lead was largely thanks to votes from the two urban constituencies of the nine seats that make up Gurgaon — Gurugram and Badshahpur.
EC data revealed that the Congress performed well in the minority-dominated assembly seats of Nuh, Punhana and Firozpur Jhirka, while the BJP candidate pulled more votes in Pataudi, Bawal, and Sohna. However, in the end, it was the two urban seats that made the difference.
Singh polled 196,805 votes in the Badshahpur assembly seat —more than two-and-a-half times the 75,081 votes that Babbar received. Similarly, in Gurugram, Singh got 162,825 votes against the 60,439 votes to the Congress pick.
Admitting that the election had been a close contest, Gurugram district BJP president Kamal Yadav said the party will have to introspect before the Haryana assembly polls later this year.
“Urban polling booths in Gurugram and Badshahpur ensured people came out and voted in large numbers, and this helped the BJP candidate,” he said.
Gzb urban pockets turn the tide
According to EC data, BJP candidate Atul Garg won the Ghaziabad seat by a margin of 336,965 votes — the third highest in Uttar Pradesh. This victory was largely down to Garg’s strong performance in the urban segments of Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, and Muradnagar — three of the five assembly seats that make up the parliamentary constituency.
According to Form 20 figures, Garg defeated Congress candidate Dolly Sharma by a margin of 191,184 in Sahibabad, 63,256 in Ghaziabad, and 76,768 in Muradnagar. The rural Loni seat went to the wire, with BJP edging out the Congress by just 21,854 votes.
Meanwhile, Sharma managed to win 16,725 more votes in Dhaulana, the EC figures revealed.
BJP betters its 2019 show in GB Nagar
Voters in two of the five segments in GB Nagar — the urban seats of Noida and Dadri — voted en masse for BJP candidate Dr Mahesh Sharma, who secured 857,829 votes —559,472 more than Samajwadi Party’s Dr Mahendra Nagar.
In Noida, Sharma got a mind-boggling 277,999 or 75.57% of the votes — more than four times the 63,506 votes that Nagar won. Similarly, in Dadri, Sharma got 251,359 votes, against the 88,088 votes to Nagar.
To be sure, Sharma also comfortably won from the remaining three segments of Jewar, Sikandrabad, and Khurja, but there, the winning margins were much closer.
The BSP was a distant third in all segments barring Khurja.