11 UP ministers lose polls; debutants Rajeshwar Singh, Asim Arun, turncoat Aditi Singh shine

Singh was serving as the joint director of the federal probe agency at its zonal office in Lucknow and he took voluntary retirement from service (VRS), which was approved by the Centre in January.
Former Enforcement Directorate officer Rajeshwar Singh (Photo | Twitter)
Former Enforcement Directorate officer Rajeshwar Singh (Photo | Twitter)

LUCKNOW: Former ED officer and BJP candidate Rajeshwar Singh won the Sarojini Nagar seat in Uttar Pradesh's capital Lucknow with a margin of over 50,000 votes against his nearest Samajwadi Party rival.

Singh posted a picture of him receiving the certificate of election from EC authorities from his official Twitter handle and said it was the victory of the people of his constituency.

Singh defeated Mishra by 56,186 votes, according to Election Commission figures.

Mishra is considered to be a trusted lieutenant of Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Singh was serving as the joint director of the federal probe agency at its zonal office in Lucknow and he took voluntary retirement from service (VRS), which was approved by the Centre in January.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer, who turns 49 on March 11, began his civil service career with the Uttar Pradesh Police, in which he served for about 10 years.

The next 14 years of his service were in the ED, which he had joined on central deputation in 2007.

"I would say that this victory of the party in Uttar Pradesh is a victory of the ideology of the BJP. The ideology of the country first. The other parties we were fighting had the ideology of family first, mafia first, criminals first," Singh said.

"We are heading for a SP-free Uttar Pradesh, the party (SP) will be wiped off from the state now," he told PTI.

Singh, who conducted as many as 250 poll rallies in about 20 days, said he will want to work for women and the youth.

The BJP gave the poll ticket to Singh for the Sarojini Nagar seat over state minister Swati Singh and her husband Dayashankar Singh, the BJP state vice president.

A total of 14 candidates contested the polls from this seat.

Aditi Singh, who had quit as a sitting Congress MLA to join the BJP ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, on Thursday won the Raebareli Sadar seat, according to official results.

Aditi Singh, a second-generation politician, is the daughter of the late Akhilesh Singh, a former five-term MLA from Raebareli Sadar, not long ago considered a Congress bastion.

Aditi got 1.02 lakh votes after an intense electoral fight with nearest rival Ram Pratap Yadav of the Samajwadi Party who polled 95,254 votes, the Election Commission website showed.

Her victory margin was 7,175 votes, according to the EC.

Congress' Manish Singh got 14,954 votes and stood third among the contestants while the BSP's Mohd Ashraf managed 9,331 votes, while 2,281 voters opted for NOTA (none of the above) option on the EVM, it showed.

The seat had gone to polls on February 23.

Asim Arun, who had quit the Indian Police Service (IPS) and joined the BJP, won from Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj assembly constituency on Thursday, according to official results.

Making his electoral debut, the former Kanpur police commissioner has dented Kannauj, which was known as a Samajwadi Party bastion.

Arun got over 1.20 lakh votes (or 44.53 per cent) defeating nearest rival Samajwadi Party's Anil Kumar Doharey by a margin of 6,090 votes, the Election Commission website showed.

Doharey, who won the Kannauj seat in 2017 assembly polls, got 1.14 lakh votes (or 42.49 per cent) of the total votes polled, the EC showed.

In 2017, Doharey had got 99,635 votes.

Arun, a 1994-batch IPS officer, was an additional director general-rank officer serving as the Kanpur Police Commissioner when he sought VRS on January 8.

The 51-year-old Arun had previously helmed the state's Anti-Terrorist Squad, the 112 service besides leading the police force in districts like Aligarh, Gorakhpur and Agra.

During central deputation, he had served in the core protection team of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Special Protection Group (SPG) and earlier got trained in policing in Kosovo in Europe in 2002-03.

As many as 11 ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government failed to win in the 2022 assembly elections, despite the BJP registering an impressive victory.

According to the Election Commission website, of the 402 seats the result of which were declared, BJP won 255.

Its alliance partners Apna Dal (Sonelal) bagged 12 and NISHAD Party six.

Samajwadi Party has won 110 seats and was leading on one seat.

Its ally RLD bagged eight seats and SBSP six.

The Congress and Jansatta Dal Loktantrik led by Raghuraj Pratap Singh won one seat each and BSP got one.

Among the ministers who lost is outgoing deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya who lost to the Samajwadi Party's Pallavi Patel by 7,337 votes in the Sirathu seat.

Patel is the vice-president of Apna Dal (K), a Samajwadi Party ally.

Sugarcane minister Suresh Rana lost the Thana Bhawan seat in Shamli district to the RLD's Ashraf Ali Khan by over 10,000 votes.

Another minister, Chhatrapal Singh Gangwar, was defeated by Ataur Rehman of the Samajwadi Party on the Baheri seat in Bareilly district by 3,355 votes.

Rural development minister Rajendra Pratap Singh alias Moti Singh lost the Patti seat in Pratapgarh to the Samajwadi Party's Ram Singh by 22,051 votes.

Chandrika Prasad Upadhyay, another minister in the Adityanath government, lost to Anil Kumar of the Samajwadi Party in Chitrakoot by 20,876 votes.

Anand Swaroop Shukla lost the Bariya seat in Ballia district to Samajwadi Party's Jaiprakash Anchal by 12,951 votes.

Shukla had last time contested from Ballia seat but was fielded from Bariya seat this time, replacing sitting MLA Surendra Singh.

State's sports minister Upendra Tiwari lost the Phephna seat in Ballia to Samajwadi Party's Sangram Singh by 19,354 votes.

Minister Ranvendra Singh Dhunni was defeated by Usha Maurya of Samajwadi Party at Hussain Ganj seat in Fatehpur district by 25,181 votes.

Lakhan Singh Rajput was defeated by Pradeep Kumar Yadav of the Samajwadi Party on Dibiyapur seat in Auraiya district by 473 votes and the state's basic education minister Satish Chandra Dwivedi was defeated by SP candidate and former speaker of the assembly Mata Prasad Pande at Itwa seat in Siddharthnagar district by 1,662 votes.

Another minister, Sangeeta Balwant was defeated by SP's Jai Kishan at the Gazipur seat by 1,692 votes.

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