Prime Minister Narendra Modi has established a huge margin over his rivals in Varanasi constituency and most of his party heavyweights led in their seats in Uttar Pradesh even as the SP-BSP-RLD gave fight to the BJP in some seats and the Congress put up a poor show in the Lok Sabha elections in Varanasi.
Modi was leading with a margin of more than 3,71,784 lakh votes, as per trends on the Election Commission website in the afternoon.
Union Ministers Rajnath Singh (Lucknow), Mahesh Sharma (Gautam Buddh Nagar), Satya Pal Singh (Baghpat), V K Singh (Ghaziabad) and Anupriya Patel (Mirzapur) were leading in the afternoon trends.
However, Ministers Maneka Gandhi and Manoj Sinha were trailing in Sultanpur and Ghazipur, respectively. Gandhi was behind BSP candidate Chandra Bhadra Singh 'Sonu' while Sinha was trailing behind BSP's Afzal Ansari, the brother of jailed mafia don Mukhtar Ansari.
BJP leader Varun Gandhi, son of Maneka Gandhi, was leading in Sultanpur, the constituency currently held by his mother.
Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi was also ahead from his Samajwadi Party (SP) rival in Allahabad.
Congress poor show was exemplified by the poor show of its President Rahul Gandhi trailing behind BJP candidate and minister Smriti Irani. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was leading from 'first family's' stronghold Raebareli.
Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar and former Union Minister Salman Khurshid were trailing in Fatehpur Sikri and Farrukhabad parliamentary seats, respectively.
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav (Azamgarh) and his father (Mainpuri) were leading. BJP has fielded Bhojpuri actor and singer Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua against Yadav. Senior SP leader Azam Khan was ahead of his BJP opponent Jaya Prada in Rampur.
Shivpal Singh Yadav, younger brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav, who floated a party after a family feud put up a poor show with the third position behind SP and BJP candidates.
Counting of votes for 542 Lok Sabha seats is underway. The seven-phase long general elections ran through April 11 to May 19.
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