Ram Jethmalani loses deposit
Congress-backed candidate Ram Jethmalani was not only relegated to third position in this constituency but also lost his deposit for polling too few votes.
Congress-backed candidate Ram Jethmalani was not only relegated to third position in this constituency but also lost his deposit for polling too few votes on Thursday.
He lost in Lucknow where Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee won with a thumping margin of 216,000 votes. Vajpayee's nearest rival was Madhu Gupta of the Samajwadi Party.
Jethmalani polled only 57,685 votes, thereby losing his deposit.
Barring a few exceptions, political bigwigs of all hues, including Vajpayee, have won the Lok Sabha election with a huge margin.
Lucknow had witnessed very low polling, at just 35 per cent, with only 587,000 voters out of an electorate of over 1.6 million stepping out of their homes to vote. Vajpayee polled 324,714 votes.
Congress president and leader of opposition Sonia Gandhi defeated her nearest rival in Rae Bareli by a huge margin of 249,000 votes, while her son Rahul Gandhi won by a whopping margin of 291,000 votes.
The disappointment for the Gandhi family was the defeat of late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's close friend Satish Sharma from Sultanpur that borders both Amethi and Rae Bareli.
Congress party suffered yet another blow in Rampur, where its candidate Begum Noor Bano lost to Bollywood film actress Jayaprada of the Samajwadi Party.
Samajwadi Party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav won by a record margin of 337,870 votes.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati won the Akbarpur reserved seat by defeating her Samajwadi Party rival Shankhlal Manjhi by a margin of 58,269 votes.
For the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a big blow came in Allahabad where Union Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi lost the election.
BJP state president Vinay Katiyar had to face a humiliating defeat in Lakhimpur-Kheri. BJP stalwart Kalyan Singh, however, just about managed to scrape through in Bulandshahr.