Judah’s Limerick
I have to say it’s a tad ungrateful
Of Ram, after all BJP was prayerful
in raising his residence
marshalling evidence
that it was precedent, was it all wasteful?
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News Story
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Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: Not just Faizabad, BJP lost 5 of 9 Lok Sabha seats in Ayodhya region. Details here
Samajwadi Party’s candidate Awadhesh Prasad Singh defeated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament (MP) Lallu Singh in Faizabad in the Lok Sabha elections 2024 results announced on June 4. Singh had won the seat in 2014 and 2019 elections. Temple city Ayodhya – where the Ram Temple is situated – falls under Faizabad seat, one of the 80 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP not only lost from Faizabad, but faced defeats in five of the nine seats in Ayodhya region of Uttar Pradesh. The other four seats that BJP lost in the region include Sultanpur, where BJP candidate Maneka Gandhi was defeated by SP candidate Ram Bhual Nishad,. In Basti too, SP candidate Ram Prasad Chaudhary defeated BJP’s two-time sitting MP Harish Dwivedi.
The other seats in Ayodhya region that the BJP lost are Ambedkar Nagar and Shrawasti. The BJP had lost these seats in 2019 too. In Ambedkar Nagar, SP candidate Lalji Verma defeated BJP candidate Ritesh Pandey, who won the seat in 2019 but on a BJP ticket. In Shrawasti, SP candidate Ram Shromani Verma defeated BJP candidate Saket Mishra by over 76000 votes. Mishra is son of Nripendra Misra, chairman of Ram Temple construction committee.
The seats in Ayodhya region that BJP won included Kaiserganj, where Karan Bhushan Singh, son of BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who is facing sexual harassment allegations emerged victorious. The BJP also won from Gonda, Domariyaganj and Bahraich seats in the region.
Ayodhya region was key for BJP’s Hindutva plan, especially in Uttar Pradesh where it could just won 33 of 80 seats in 2024 as against 62 seats in 2019. The opposition INDIA bloc won 43 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya – an event which many saw would fetch electoral benefits for the BJP in 2024 general elections.
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