SP gains in UP
Defying exit polls, SP bagged half of the seats in UP, while in a major setback for the NDA, BJP got 10 seats.
India's politically most important state has thrown up quite a few exciting results in the General Elections of 2004. The polls almost marked the beginning of the end of the long journey Atal Bihari Vajpayee had commenced in 1957. The outgoing Prime Minister wins yet again from Lucknow defeating his nearest Samajwadi Party rival Madhu Gupta by a margin of 2,18,375 votes.
And the "Prime Minister-in-waiting", Congress president Sonia Gandhi has romped home with a resounding win from the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency. Gandhi defeated her nearest BJP rival Girish Narayan Pandey. Her son Rahul Gandhi, as was expected, scored an easy victory from Amethi, the seat once held by his late father and then his mother.
Top state leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, too won. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav defeated Ashok Shakya of BSP in Mainpuri by 3,37870 votes. BSP leader Mayawati won the Akbarpur seat by defeating Samajwadi Party's Sankhlal Manjhi by 58,272 votes.
The outstanding looser was high profile Union Human Resource Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, who lost to Samajwadi Party's Reoti Raman Singh in his stronghold Allahabad.