Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: Not just Faizabad, BJP lost 5 of 9 Lok Sabha seats in Ayodhya region. Details here

Samajwadi Party’s candidate Awadhesh Prasad Singh defeated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament (MP) Lallu Singh in Faizabad in the Lok Sabha elections 2024 results announced on June 4. Singh won the seat in the 2014 and 2019 elections. Temple city Ayodhya – where the Ram Temple is situated – falls under Faizabad seat, one of the 80 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh.

The  BJP not only lost from Faizabad but faced defeats in five of the nine seats in the Ayodhya region of Uttar Pradesh. The other four seats that BJP lost in the region include Sultanpur, where BJP candidate Maneka Gandhi was defeated by SP candidate Ram Bhual Nishad. In Basti, SP candidate Ram Prasad Chaudhary also defeated BJP’s two-time sitting MP Harish Dwivedi.

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The other seats in Ayodhya region that the BJP lost are Ambedkar Nagar and Shrawasti. The BJP lost these seats in 2019, too. In Ambedkar Nagar, SP candidate Lalji Verma defeated BJP candidate Ritesh Pandey, who won the seat in 2019 but on a BJP ticket. In Shrawasti, SP candidate Ram Shromani  Verma defeated BJP candidate Saket Mishra by over 76000 votes. Mishra is the son of Nripendra Misra, chairman of the Ram Temple construction committee.

The BJP won seats in the Ayodhya region, including Kaiserganj, where Karan Bhushan Singh, son of BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who faces sexual harassment allegations, emerged victorious. The BJP also won from Gonda, Domariyaganj and Bahraich seats in the region.

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The Ayodhya region was key to BJP's Hindutva plan, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where it could just win 33 of 80 seats in 2024 as against 62 seats in 2019. The opposition INDIA bloc won 43 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya – an event which many saw would fetch electoral benefits for the BJP in the 2024 general elections.

Setbacks in Varanasi region too

The BJP's setbacks from Uttar Pradesh also include losing 9 of 12 seats in the Varanasi region, which includes Varanasi, Bhadohi, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Robertsganj, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Machhlishahr, Ghosi, Azamgarh, Lalganj, and Ballia. 

In the 2019 general elections, the partywon seven of these seats with its ally Apna Dal-Soneylal. It lost Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Ghosi, Lalganj, and Azamgarh. The saffron party, however, retained Azamgarh in a bypoll later.

In 2024,  the BJP won only three seats, including one won by ally Apna Dal-Soneylal. The BJP lost Chandauli, Robertsganj, Ghazipur, Ghosi, Lalganj, Jaunpur, Machhlishahr, Azamgarh and Ballia.

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The seats that the BJP won in the region include Varanasi, Mirzapur, and Bhadohi. In Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi won, albeit with a reduced margin of 1.5 lakh votes. The Mirzapur seat was bagged by Union minister Anupriya Patel, the leader of the Apna Dal (Soneylal). In Bhadohi, the BJP’s Vinod Kumar Bind defeated TMC’s Lalitesh Pati Tripathi by about 44,000 votes.