BJP in lead, but losing 108 seats to SP in UP; Cong fighting back in Uttarakhand, Punjab
Darpan News Desk IANS, 12 Nov, 2021 11:04 AM
New Delhi, Nov 12 (IANS) The BJP is still the favourite to win the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh next year but it is now losing 108 seats as the Samajwadi Party rises rapidly, while in Uttarakhand and Punjab, Congress is making a strong comeback, as per the ABP-CVoter-IANS 5-State Snap Poll.
While the BJP led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is still the favourite to win the Assembly polls in 2022, Samajwadi Party (SP) is gathering steam and the difference between the two parties is narrowing, as per the snap poll.
The five-state snap poll was conducted with a sample size of 1,07,193 across 690 seats with a margin of error of +/- 3% to +/- 5%.
In the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the BJP and its alliance partners are projected to get 217 seats, 108 seats down from 325 it won in the 2017 elections.
The SP led by former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is rising rapidly in popularity and is now expected to get 156 seats. The battle in UP is now clearly between the BJP and the SP and the gap between the two is only around 60 seats.
In Uttarakhand, the BJP is still leading the race with 38 seats down from 57 it won in the previous elections, losing 19 seats. It is the Congress that is giving a strong fight to the BJP with a gain of 21 seats, touching a tally of 32 seats in the 70-member Assembly.
In Punjab also, the gap is narrowing between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress. AAP is still ahead with 51 seats in the 117-member Assembly, but the Congress has narrowed the gap with a tally of 46 seats, still down 31 seats from its tally of 77 in the previous elections, but new Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi is making a difference. Akali Dal is third with 20 seats.
In Goa, the BJP is leading with 21 seats in the 40-member Assembly, followed by others at 10, AAP at 5 and Congress with only 4 seats.
In Manipur, the BJP is leading with 27 seats in the 60-member Assembly, followed by Congress with 22 seats.
In Uttar Pradesh, while the BJP is holding on to its vote share, with just a minor drop of 0.7 per cent at 40.7 per cent, it is losing 108 seats as the SP is gaining vote share by 7.1 per cent to 31.1 per cent.
Channi took oath of office along with his two deputies -- one a Jat Sikh and another belonging to the Hindu community -- at a simple ceremony here in the Punjab capital that was delayed for 20 minutes owing to the late arrival of party leader Rahul Gandhi.
Jasbir Singh Virk, president of Bhartiya Sikh Sangthan, has underlined the need to intensify the ongoing farmers' agitation and said that there was a need to shore up strength at the Delhi borders.
Punjab BJP President Ashwani Sharma told IANS that to control infighting in its party state unit, the Congress leadership made Channi ji (Charanjit Singh Channi) the Punjab Chief Minister but insulted the Dalit community by not allowing him to lead the party in the upcoming state Assembly polls.
The government and drug controller's office will have to take a decision on the third booster dose based on data and cases as times goes on and including how effective the vaccine is on the Delta virus variant, he added.
The petitioner said the state had passed the Punjab Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act of 2006 but it has never implemented it in case of appointment in judicial services.
