A day after Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi chief Akhilesh Yadav took to social media to thank the public and said that his party has shown that the saffron party's seat count can be decreased.
SP finished with 111 seats in the 2022 Assembly elections, results of which were declared on 10 March. However, the state saw another saffron wave as the BJP and its allies won 273 seats out of the total 403 seats.
"Thanks to the people of UP for increasing our seats by two and a half times and vote percentage by one and a half times!" he tweeted.
The SP received 32.06 percent votes against the BJP's vote share of 41.29 percent in the 2022 Assembly polls.
"We have shown that the BJP's seat count can be decreased. This decline would continue. More than half of the falsehoods have been wiped out. The rest will follow. The struggle for the public interest would continue."
"Samajwadi National President and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has said that the Samajwadi Party accepts the mandate of the Assembly elections 2022 by respecting the people. Thanks to every single student, unemployed youth, teacher, education friend, old pension supporter, woman, farmer, labourer and all well wishers who have shown faith in Samajwadi Party," the party said in a statement.
Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday won his maiden Assembly election by 67,504 votes from the party stronghold Karhal in Mainpuri district. He received 1,48,196 votes, 60.12 percent of the total votes polled, against 80,692 votes for his BJP rival Union minister SP Singh Baghel. With 15,701 votes, BSP's Kuladip Narayan remained on the third position.
The Samajwadi Party, in an alliance with Congress in 2017, had cumulatively secured a total of 54 seats. While the SP secured 47 seats, the Congress had won just seven seats.
The exit poll results 2022 had projected that the SP’s vote shares would witness a jump from 21.8 percent in 2017 and 20.1 percent in 2019 to 36 percent in 2022. It has, however, received a vote share of 32.06 percent.
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