In the 2024 Lok Sabha election results announced on June 4, Samajwadi Party candidate Awadhesh Prasad Singh defeated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Lal Singh in Faizabad, who had won the seat in the 2014 and 2019 elections. The temple city of Ayodhya, home to the Ram temple, falls under the Faizabad constituency, one of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha seats.
Besides losing in Faizabad, the BJP also faced defeat in five of the nine seats in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya region. The other four seats it lost in the region included Sultanpur, where BJP candidate Maneka Gandhi lost to SP candidate Ram Buar Nishad, and Basti, where SP candidate Ram Prasad Chaudhary also defeated BJP’s two-term MP Harish Dwivedi.
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The other seats lost by the BJP in Ayodhya region are Ambedkar Nagar and Shrawasti. The BJP had also lost these seats in 2019. In Ambedkar Nagar, SP candidate Lalji Verma defeated BJP candidate Ritesh Pandey, who had won the seat on a BJP ticket in 2019. In Shrawasti, SP candidate Ram Shromani Verma defeated BJP candidate Saket Mishra by over 76,000 votes. Mishra is the son of Nripendra Misra, chairman of the Ram Temple Construction Committee.
The BJP won seats in Ayodhya region, including Kaisarganj, where Karan Bhushan Singh, son of BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who is facing sexual harassment allegations, won. The BJP also won seats in Gonda, Domariyaganj and Bahraich in the region.
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The Ayodhya region is key for the BJP’s Hindutva project, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where it is likely to win 33 of the 80 seats in 2024, as against 62 in 2019. The opposition Indian Union won 43 seats in the state.
In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram temple in Ayodhya, an event that many saw as an electoral boon for the BJP in the 2024 general elections.
Setbacks in Varanasi
The BJP’s defeat in Uttar Pradesh also includes the loss of nine of the 12 seats in Varanasi region, which includes Varanasi, Bhadohi, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Robertsganj, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Machirishal, Ghosi, Azamgarh, Lalganj and Bahria.
In the 2019 general elections, the party won seven seats along with its ally Apna Dal Sonayal. It lost seats in Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Ghosi, Lalganj and Azamgarh. However, the saffron party managed to retain Azamgarh in the subsequent by-elections.
In 2024, the BJP managed to win just three seats, including one won by its ally Apna Dal Sonilal. The BJP was defeated in Chandauli, Robertsganj, Gazipur, Ghosi, Lalganj, Jaunpur, Machilishah, Azamgarh and Bahria.
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Seats won by the BJP in the region include Varanasi, Mirzapur and Bhadohi. In Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi won by a margin of 1.5 lakh votes. The Mirzapur seat was won by Union Minister Anupriya Patel, who also leads the Apna Dal (Soneyal). In Bhadohi, BJP’s Vinod Kumar Bhind defeated TMC’s Lalitesh Pati Tripathi by a margin of around 44,000 votes.
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