Uttar Pradesh poll results: How the margin of victories calls the EVM manipulation bluff

The results of 18^th Assembly election of Uttar Pradesh have bulldozed numerous tall claims, and hence, to justify them several conspiracy theories have been floated up. The concealment of mandate through EVM manipulation has been dominated since the 2017 election, but this time tampering in the electoral roll has been added. It is alleged that locally names of supporters of Opposition parties were strategically eliminated from the electoral roll, and hence, the Opposition parties lost many seats with narrow margins. To support this, numerous images have been circulated on social media claiming that the margin of victory between the incumbent BJP and the challenger SP has been below 2,000 votes on so many seats. The claims about the number of such seats have been varying.

Although the electoral roll tampering allegation cannot be verified at this stage, claims about the margin of victories can be analysed easily. Based on the constituency wise trend of election result data of the Election Commission of India (ECI), I analyse the margin of votes of various parties.

Margin of Victory Below 2,000

Figure 1 shows the party-wise margin of victory of candidates. There are 29 candidates who have won the election with a margin below 2,000, out of which 18 candidates have been from the BJP and its allies whereas 10 candidates have been from the SP and its allies. One candidate has been from the Congress.

Figure 1: Party-Wise Victory Margin of Candidates

Table 1 provides information about the top 10 candidates who have won the election by a narrow margin. Among all candidates Ashok Kumar Rana of the BJP has defeated Naimul Hasan of the SP with a narrowed margin of votes (203) in the Dhampur constituency of Bijour district, followed by Sakendra Pratap of the BJP in the Kursi constituency of Barabanki district. Pratap has defeated Rakesh Kumar Verma of the SP; Rakesh is son of late Beni Prasad Verma, the stalwart Kurmi leader of Uttar Pradesh.

Table-1: Top 10 Candidates Winning with Narrowest Margin of Votes

Constituency	Const. No.	Winner Candidate	Winner Party	Runner Candidate	Runner Party	Margin
Dhampur	20	ASHOK KUMAR RANA	BJP	NAIM UL HASAN	SP	203
Kursi	266	Sakendra Pratap	BJP	Rakesh Kumar Verma	SP	217
Chandpur	23	SWAMI OMVESH	SP	KAMLESH SAINI	BJP	234
Nehtaur	21	OMKUMAR	BJP	MUNSHIRAM	RLD	258
Ram Nagar	267	FAREED MAHFOOZ KIDWAI	SP	SHARAD KUMAR AWASTHI	BJP	261
Isauli	187	MOHD TAHIR KHAN	SP	OM PRAKASH PANDEY	BJP	269
Bilaspur	36	Baldev Singh Aulakh	BJP	Amarjeet Singh	SP	307
Baraut	51	KRISHAN PAL MALIK	BJP	JAIVEER	RLD	315
Nakur	2	MUKESH CHOUDHARY	BJP	DR. DHARAM SINGH SAINI	SP	315

Margin of Victory Above 1 lakh Vote

Figure 1 further reveals that there are 11 Assembly constituencies where the margin of victory has been more than one lakh votes. All such constituencies have been won by the BJP candidates. Table 1 provides further description about such candidates. Sunil Kumar Sharma of the BJP has defeated his rival Amarpal Sharma of the SP with the highest margin of votes (214,835) in the Sahibabad constituency of Ghaziabad district. Pankaj Singh, son of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, is at the second position defeating his rival with the highest number of votes. The name of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also figures in this list, and his name is at the 10^th position.

Table 2: Winning Candidates with Victory Margin of More than 1 Lakh

Constituency	Const. No	Winner Candidate	Winner Party	Runner Candidate	Runner Party	Margin
Sahibabad	55	SUNIL KUMAR SHARMA	BJP	AMARPAL SHARMA	SP	214835
Noida	61	Pankaj Singh	BJP	Sunil Choudhary	SP	181513
Dadri	62	TEJPAL SINGH NAGAR	BJP	RAJKUMAR BHATI	SP	138218
Meerut Cantt.	47	AMIT AGARWAL	BJP	MANISHA AHLAWAT	Rashtriya Lok Dal	118072
Agra North	89	PURUSHOTTAM KHANDELWAL	BJP	SHABBIR ABBAS	Bahujan Samaj Party	112370
Mehroni	227	Manohar Lal	BJP	Kiran Ramesh Khatik	Bahujan Samaj Party	110451
Mathura	84	SHRIKANT SHARMA	BJP	PRADEEP MATHUR	Indian National Congress	109803
Lalitpur	226	Ramratan Kushwaha	BJP	Chandra Bhusan Singh Bundela (Guddu Raja)	Bahujan Samaj Party	107215
Ghaziabad	56	Atul Garg	BJP	Vishal Verma	SP	105537
Gorakhpur Urban	322	ADITYANATH	BJP	SUBHAWATI UPENDRA DUTT SHUKLA	SP	103390
Hathras	78	ANJULA SINGH MAHAUR	BJP	SANJEEV KUMAR	Bahujan Samaj Party	100856

Battle for the Second Position

Figure 2 provides a description about the number of seats each political party acquired at the second position. The figure reveals that the SP candidates acquired the highest number (223) at the second position in the electoral contest, followed by the BJP candidates (115). The most interesting revelation is about the BSP which trails RLD even at the second position. Nineteen RLD and 18 BSP candidates are at the second position.

Figure 2: Political Parties at the Second Position

 

The analysis of the margin of votes of winners and runners-up reveal that the name of BJP candidates not only figure in the list of candidates winning with narrowest margin of votes, but also highest margin of votes. The Opposition needs to work not only in those constituencies where the victory margin is narrow, but also where the victory margin is widest.

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