The Milkipur assembly seat of Uttar Pradesh, which has become a matter of prestige amid the Delhi assembly elections, is the most discussed.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has taken a lead by a huge margin and the Samajwadi Party is lagging.
According to the Election Commission, the BJP candidate is leading by 28 thousand 679 votes after the 10th round of counting. BJP’s Chandrabhanu Paswan got 53 thousand 299 votes while SP’s Ajit Prasad got 24 thousand 620 votes.
Suraj Chaudhary alias Santosh Kumar, the candidate of Azad Samaj Party (Kashiram), who made this contest triangular, has got only 1,649 votes. The counting of votes is to be done in a total of 30 rounds.
In fact, in the Lok Sabha elections held last year, Awadhesh Prasad, who was an MLA from Milkipur, had won from Faizabad. Due to this, this assembly seat had become vacant.
Awadhesh Prasad had defeated BJP’s Lallu Singh from Faizabad Lok Sabha seat of Ayodhya. Lallu Singh was the MP from there for two consecutive terms. His victory was discussed a lot at the national level.
In January last year, the Ram Mandir was consecrated in Ayodhya. BJP had also made good use of it in the Lok Sabha elections, but the defeat from the Faizabad seat of Ayodhya was a big blow to BJP.
Also read: Delhi Elections: Manish Sisodia loses from Jangpura seat, Arvind Kejriwal trails from New Delhi seat
The opposition India Alliance had called this victory a victory of the Constitution. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi even made him sit with him in the House and mentioned his victory several times in his speeches.
Milkipur a question of prestige
Due to the defeat of Faizabad seat in the Lok Sabha elections, Milkipur had become a question of prestige for the Bharatiya Janata Party. From the minister of Uttar Pradesh to the Chief Minister, everyone had put in all their efforts to make the equation of victory on this seat.
Awadhesh Prasad, who was an MLA from this seat, had won in the Lok Sabha elections. BJP wanted to leave behind its Lok Sabha defeat by winning this seat in the by-election.
More than the Samajwadi Party, this had become a matter of pride for Awadhesh Prasad. Awadhesh had got the ticket for his son.
Azad Samaj Party had made the contest triangular by fielding a candidate
Milkipur has been a reserved seat since 2009. This time in the by-election, there was a direct contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party.
Bahujan Samaj Party did not field its candidate here and Congress supported Samajwadi Party.
However, Azad Samaj Party (Kashiram) president Chandrashekhar Azad had tried to make this contest triangular by fielding his candidate Suraj Chaudhary alias Santosh Kumar. 10 candidates were in the fray from here.
Milkipur has been the stronghold of Samajwadi Party
The seat of Milkipur has traditionally been the stronghold of the Samajwadi Party. Milkipur was considered to be an impregnable fort by Mitra Sen Yadav, who was an MP from the Communist Party of India and later became the leader of the Samajwadi Party.
When Awadhesh Prasad became MLA from here in 2012 and 2022, he got the benefit of this legacy.
Awadhesh Prasad is believed to have a deep penetration in this area. He has also been a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government six times. This time the Samajwadi Party had fielded his son Ajit Prasad from this seat.
There are 3 lakh 70 thousand 829 voters in the Milkipur seat. Male voters are 1 lakh 92 thousand 984 and female voters are 1 lakh 77 thousand 838. Among these voters, there are 4811 new voters for the first time.
