Lok Sabha results: PM Modi wins from Varanasi with his lowest-ever margin

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday won from the Varanasi seat, defeating Congress' Ajay Rai, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI). This marks his third consecutive victory from the seat.

However, it is the lowest margin with which he has won the seat since he first won it in 2014. According to the data from EC, he won the seat with a margin of 152,513 votes.

In 2019, Modi bagged 674,664 votes, a margin of 479,000 votes over Rai. In 2014, he won with a margin of 372,000 votes. He then defeated the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal, who was his main rival. Ajay Rai came third.

This year, Rai narrowed the margin by winning 460,457 votes compared to PM Modi's 612,970 votes.

This time, the BJP leaders were claiming that PM Modi's victory margin would create a record.

With PM Modi's victory, the BJP has won the Varanasi seat each time since 1991, except in 2004  when the Congress party's Rajesh Mishra defeated the BJP's Shanker Prasad Jaiswal by 57,436 votes.

According to the latest data, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is set to retain power in India but with a narrow margin. The BJP alone, however, is falling short of the majority of its own in the 543-member parliament.

This would also be the first time for PM Modi that under his leadership, his party has failed to reach the majority mark.

 

However, in a surprise for pollsters, the INDIA bloc, formed to tackle the BJP juggernaut, was leading in 236 seats as of 5:30 pm. Congress alone was leading in 99 seats, a major improvement from 52 seats won in 2019.

The Samajwadi Party played a key role in boosting the INDIA bloc's numbers by leading in 38 seats in Uttar Pradesh.