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(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)The votes for the high-stakes assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh will start being counted at 8 am on Saturday morning. The trends are expected to be available by 11 am.By 12 noon, a final picture could emerge on who the major players are in the state.According to Election Commission guidelines, half an hour after the postal ballots are counted, the process of counting EVM votes begins. Counting will take place at 75 centres in UP.Samajwadi Party workers perform a havan in Lucknow ahead of the election results.Meanwhile, BJP candidate from Lucknow Cantt, Rita Bahuguna Joshi offers prayers at Hazratganj’s Hanuman Temple.Exhibiting confidence, BJP state chief, Keshav Prasad Maurya, said the exit polls – which project BJP as the largest party – have underestimated the party.Speaking to ANI, he said:We are winning with two/third majority. Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party will be wiped away.The counting of votes for 403-assembly seats have begun. The postal ballot votes will be counted first. After a gap of half an hour, the EVM votes will be counted.BJP candidate from Lucknow Cantt, Rita Bahuguna Joshi has reached the Lucknow counting centre, reports NDTV.The postal ballots are being counted and the BJP has already won a clear lead in the key seat of Shamli in Western Uttar Pradesh.According to early trends, BSP’s Mukhtar Ansari, who is contesting from prison, is leading in the constituency of Mau.Shivpal Yadav, Samajwadi Party leader is optimistic of a win.Counting shuru ho gayi. Humari badi jeet hogi (Counting has begun. We will emerge victorious)BJP’s Garima Singh is leading in Amethi. Amethi and Rae Bareli are key constituencies for Congress.Samajwadi Party’s Abdullah Azam Khan, son of Azam Khan, is trailing from Suar in Rampur.Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law, Aparna Yadav, is trailing from Lucknow Cantt. She is contesting against BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi.Samajwadi Party’s Azam Khan is leading in Rampur.Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, key candidate from Samajwadi Party, is leading in Amethi. Prajapati has come under controversy over rape accusations and has been at large.According to early trends, BJP is surging ahead. The party is leading in over 100 seats and if these trends persist, it is likely to win a majority.Here’s a glimpse of the party-wise vote share from the postal ballots.As early trends suggest BJP is surging ahead, party workers are seen celebrating in Lucknow.Here’s how some of the predictor seats, that are the key swing seats in Uttar Pradesh, seem to have voted so far:Bakshi Kaa Talab: BSPChitrakoot: BJPRobertsganj: BJPNagina: SPSarojini Nagar: SPShekhupur: BJPSamajwadi Party’s Shivpal Yadav, who has had several conflicts with nephew and incumbent Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, is leading from Jaswantnagar.The trends clearly suggest that BJP is on the way to form a comfortable majority. According to leads, so far 274 seats seem to be with the BJP. The halfway mark in the Uttar Pradesh assembly 202.Ram Achal Rajbhar, state president of Bahujan Samaj Party, is leading in Akbarpur.Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit was asked in an interview with NDTV what Rahul Gandhi’s course of action should be after an increasingly clear loss in Uttar Pradesh.“If you were Rahul Gandhi, would you step down now?” asked Prannoy Roy.“Well, I’m not Rahul Gandhi...”Congress’ Jitin Prasada is leading in Tilhar with 13498 votes. He’s followed by Roshan Lal Verma of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who has 9905 votes so far.Responding to the numbers, Yogi Adityanath said the people’s verdict is in favour of development – vikas.Pankaj Singh, Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s son, is leading in the Noida seat.Gangster-turned-politican, Mukhtar Ansari, is leading from Mau with 8,585 votes. Meanwhile, his son Abbas and brother Sigbatullah are trailing in Ghosi and Mohammadabad seats respectively.Keshav Prasad Maurya, BJP state chief, is a key figure. BJP fought the elections without a Chief Ministerial face, and Maurya is considered a possible contender for the post.BJP is leading in four out of five seats in Varanasi.Rohaniya - BJPVaranasi Cantt - BJPVaranasi North - BJPVaranasi South - BJPThe fifth seat, Sevapuri, has gone to Apna Dal.BJP leader and MoS for Parliamentary Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi says the Uttar Pradesh mandate is an approval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies.Meanwhile, Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Ravi Shankar Prasad say the mandate is a decisive verdict that the “Prime Minister is our leader”.The Quint’s reporter, Neeraj Gupta, is at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi bringing live updates.Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. He’s expected to address the party workers at 4 pm.Party president Amit Shah congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state party chief, Keshav Prasad Maurya, for BJP’s sweeping victory in UP.Read the full story here.Meanwhile, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala has this to say of Modi’s leadership.BSP supremo Mayawati alleged that the election was rigged and wondered how the BJP won even in Muslim areas.Responding to Mayawati’s allegations, Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani said:There’s a Hindi saying – angoor khatte hai (sour grapes). The signs were telling in 2014 that this is the result they should expect. If they didn’t see that, it’s a question of their organisational skills. It shows that Muslims, as a group, no longer want to be treated as a vote bank who are ignored on issues of development.Addressing a press conference, party president Amit Shah thanks voters. “The results prove the support for Narendra Modi. After independence, he is the most popular leader,” says Amit Shah in the aftermath of the Uttar Pradesh election results.He added that the assembly elections in five states proved that BJP’s positive agenda helped defeat caste and dynastic politics. “Politics of performance has defeated caste and dynasty politics,” he said.Asked about the chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh, Shah said the decision will be taken on Sunday.An overjoyed Modi described as “very humbling and overwhelming” BJP’s poll victories in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and thanked people for “continued faith and support“.He hailed BJP chief Amit Shah, party office bearers and State units for their exemplary work in taking the party to new heights.“Am overjoyed that BJP has received unprecedented support from all sections of society. Huge support from the youth is gladdening,” Modi said while commenting on the poll results in a series of tweets.“Gratitude to the people of India for the continued faith, support and affection for the BJP. This is very humbling and overwhelming,” he said.Former Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi won from Lucknow Cantt. She contested against Samajwadi Party candidate and daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Aparna Yadav.Gangster-turned-politican, Mukhtar Ansari, has won from Mau with 97, 199 votes.Swati Singh, wife of expelled BJP leader Dayashankar Singh, has won from Sarojini Nagar seat.“I congratulate Narendra Modi and the BJP on their victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand,” Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said.The Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance has had a crushing defeat at the hands of the BJP.Modi replied to Rahul on Twitter.“It seems like voters preferred bullet trains to expressways,” says Akhilesh Yadav, conceding defeat.Commenting on Mayawati’s allegations that the EVM machines were tampered with, Akhilesh said that the BJP government should probe it.Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav met Governor Ram Naik to submit his resignation as the state chief minister.Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj Singh won the Noida assembly seat for the BJP, defeating his nearest rival Samajwadi Party candidate Sunil Choudhary by a margin of 1,04,016 votes.The BJP on Saturday won by huge margins the Bara and Koraon assembly seats in Allahabad, both reserved for Scheduled Castes, making it clear that the party has made inroads into the “Dalit vote bank”.BJP candidate Rajmani won Koraon by a massive margin of about 54,000 votes while Bara was retained by Ajay Kumar for the party.BJP alone has won 312 seats in Uttar Pradesh, making it a historical victory for reasons more than one.The Samajwadi Party-Congress combine has been relegated to a distant second with merely 54 seats.

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UP Results: Modi Wave Sweeps the State in Historic Mandate

Live updates of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections 2017.

(This live blog was republished on 16 February 2022 for internal testing purposes. It was originally published on 11 March 2017.)

Gayatri Prajapati Loses Amethi to BJP's Garima Singh

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Final Numbers are in: Modi Wave Sweeps the State

BJP's Pankaj Singh Wins From Noida