15 seats in UP Assembly elections won by a margin of less than 1,000 votes: ADR

ADR Image Courtesy:economictimes.indiatimes.com

As many as 15 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election winners bagged their constituency seat with less than 1,000 votes, reported the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on April 7, 2022.

In a report that analysed the vote share for all 403 constituencies in the state elections, ADR found that only eight winners won by a victory margin of more than 40 percent. All of these aforementioned winners were from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Meanwhile, of the 15 candidates won with a margin of less than 1,000 votes, six people were from the Samajwadi Party (SP) while the rest were members of the ruling regime.

Moreover, the ADR reported that 78 out of 205 winners with declared criminal cases won against a runner up with a clean background. Three winners even won by a margin of 30 percent like BJP’s Amit Agarwal who won the Meerut Cantt. constituency with a 48 percent margin of victory. 51 winners with declared criminal cases have won with a vote share of 50 percent and above. However, 38 winners won by a margin of less than 10 percent. Another 29 winners earned a margin between 10-20 percent.

Similarly, the report said that 49 out of 366 crorepati winners won against non-crorepati runners up. As many as 103 (28 percent) crorepati winners won with a vote share of 50 percent and above. Yet, 19 winners got a victory margin of less than 10 percent while another 19 winners got a victory margin between 10-20 percent.

“Among these 49 winners, 7 winners have won with more than 30 percent margin of victory. BJP’s Atul Garg from Ghaziabad constituency won with a 43 percent margin of victory,” said the ADR.

As for gender, 47 of the 403 winners were women, 33 of whom enjoyed a vote share of 41-50 percent.

“BJP’s Anjula Singh Mahaur from Hathras constituency won with the highest vote share, i.e. 59 percent in her constituency and 38 percent margin of victory,” said the report.

As many as seven women won a vote share of more than 50 percent while the remaining seven winners got a vote share between 31-40 percent. In terms of victory margins, five women winners won with more than 20 percent margin of victory, 11 women won by 10 to 20 percent victory margin and the rest got less than 10 percent of victory margins.

Overall, this year’s winners won an average of 47 percent of total votes polled. In comparison, winners of the 2017 elections won an average of 43 percent of total votes polled. As many as 111 (28 percent) winners won by securing 50 percent and above of the total votes polled in their constituency.

There were also 209 re-elected winners this year, all of whom got more than 35 percent of vote share in their respective constituencies. As many as 64 (31 percent) of these winners won with more than 50 percent of vote share. Further, 92 (44 percent) re-elected winners won with a victory margin of less than 10 percent whereas 17 people won with a margin of more than 30 percent.

The entire report may be read here: