BJP claims strong footing in 22 out of 30 UP seats

The BJP said it was well placed in about 22 out of the 30 LS seats where elections are being held in the second phase of polling in UP.

The BJP said it was well placed in about 22 out of the 30 Lok Sabha constituencies where elections are being held in the second phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday.

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The BJP had won seven of these 30 constituencies in the last elections and on 15 others it had lost narrowly, party's national general secretary Pramod Mahajan told newspersons here, adding this time the party had ‘very good chances’ of winning upto 22 of these seats.

In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections the party's overall popularity had been on the wane and that was the reason the BJP could bag only seven seats in central Uttar Pradesh where elections are being held on Wednesday, Mahajan said.

He said the party has since regained its strength on the basis of the good governance provided by it at the Centre during the last five years.

Mahajan also claimed that Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee's victory margin in Lucknow would go up considerably.

Replying to a question, he said there had been no effect of the stampede tragedy in which 22 women were killed during a saree distribution programme to celebrate the birthday of senior BJP leader Lalji Tandon Lucknow last month.

“Such accidents are tragic but they cannot be linked to elections”, he said, adding that the incident will have ‘no effect on the election results.’