BJP sweeps Agra, wins 4 seats in Mathura

Agra, March 11 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday won all nine assembly seats in Agra and four of five assembly seats in Mathura.

Defeating his nearest rival by around 43,000 votes, Jagan Prasad Garg will represent BJP in the Agra North assembly constituency for the fifth time.

Ram Pratap Singh won by a margin of 46,000 votes from the Etmadpur constituency .

G.S. Dharmesh in Agra Cantonment and Yogendra Upadhyaya from Agra South constituencies both trounced Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidates.

After joining the BJP at the last minute, former member of the Samajwadi Party (SP) Rani Pakshalika Singh won from Bah constituency.

From Fatehpur Sikri, Choudhary Uday Bhan Singh won by a huge margin while in Agra Rural BJP's Hemlata Diwakar defeated BSP's Kali Charan Suman. Rajendra Singh from SP was defeated by Jintendra Verma in Fatehabad assembly constituency.

Of the nine successful candidates, two are women.

Before the elections, poll pundits gave only two seats to the BJP.

Agra -- considered the 'dalit capital of north India' -- had five BSP MLAs out of the nine in the previous assembly. Mayawati was banking heavily on support from Agra.

In Mathura, four of the five assembly seats have gone to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The lone BSP victor from Maant is Shyam Sundar Sharma, who won by a close margin of a few hundred votes.

Of key interest is national spokesperson of the BJP Shrikant Sharma, who is being seen as a chief ministerial candidate. Though initially there was resistance to his candidature as he was considered an outsider, Sharma won by a huge margin.

(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)