The humiliation for the grand old party just does not seem to end. 21 out of the 22 candidates who fought the elections on Congress ticket in Western UP lost their deposits. As per the Election Commission, any candidate who fails to secure 1/6th of the total votes polled (around 16.67%), loses the deposit of Rs 25,000.
Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee President Raj Babbar and former Union Minister Salman Khurshid lost their deposits. The only candidate in western Uttar Pradesh who managed to save his deposit was the Imran Masood, who once wanted to ‘chop Modi into pieces‘.
Congress candidates from Agra, Mathura, Aligarh, Hathras, Bareilly, Badaun, Aonla, Shahjahanpur, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Gautam Budh Nagar, Moradabad, Sambhal, Bijnor, Nagina, Amroha Rampur and Kairana have all lost their deposits. Congress-backed candidates who fought on Pilibhit and Etah seats also lost their deposits.
Congress candidates lost their deposits even in Prayagraj and Phulpur constituencies. Phulpur was first represented in the parliament by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Rahul Gandhi’s great grandfather. His great-grandaunt, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, too held on to Phulpur seat after Nehru’s death. In fact, in Uttar Pradesh, except for former Congress President Sonia Gandhi, every other Congress candidate has lost.
Prayagraj seat, which was once represented by film actor Amitabh Bachchan, a close friend of Rahul Gandhi’s father Rajiv Gandhi, was also lost by Congress. Bachchan had won Allahabad seat after defeating former UP chief minister Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna. Twenty-five years later, his daughter won it back for the BJP.
Earlier we had reported how the Congress had emerged as a ‘vote cutter‘ party in Uttar Pradesh, which was once considered to be its stronghold. In as many as 9 seats in UP, the victory margin was less than the votes won by Congress and its allies.
Amusingly, Congress in-charge for Uttar Pradesh West, Jyotiraditya Scindia, too lost his seat in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna.