Ayodhya: BJP suffers setback in temple town

LUCKNOW: The construction of the Ram temple and the campaign around it did not reap poll dividends for BJP as it failed to win the Faizabad seat, which has Ayodhya town. SP’s Awadhesh Prasad (79) defeated BJP candidate Lallu Singh (69) by more than 54,000 votes.
Prasad, a nine-time MLA and among the founding members of the SP, was locked in a close fight with two-time MP Lallu Singh till the afternoon.However, at 1.30pm onwards, Prasad kept increasing his lead and eventually emerged the winner. While Prasad reached the counting venue after offering prayers at Hanumangarhi temple, Lallu Singh did not turn up at the counting centre.
Prasad is a Dalit but fielded from a general seat by SP and it ultimately paid off as over 2.5 lakh Passis in the constituency appear to have backed him.
The saffron camp also lost all other four seats in Ayodhya division — Ambedkarnagar, Barabanki, Sultanpur and Amethi. In Barabanki, voters elected Congress candidate Tanuj Punia while SP’s Lalji Verma, a seasoned politician, won in Ambedkarnagar. Big upset came in Sultanpur where BJP MP Maneka Gandhi lost to SP’s Rambhual Nishad while Union minister Smriti Irani lost to Gandhi family loyalist KL Sharma in Amethi.