2009 Lok Sabha Election: Results Tally
New Delhi, May 17 (IANS) As the Election Commission formally announced results for 541 of the 543 elected seats in the Lok Sabha by Sunday morning, the United Progressive Alliance had 262 seats, 10 short of the halfway mark.
Counting in two seats had to be stopped Saturday as the electronic voting machines had developed snags. The seats were Tonk-Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan and Chandauli in Uttar Pradesh.
The tally so far:
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) - 262
Congress - 205
Trinamool Congress - 19
Nationalist Congress Party - 9
DMK - 18
National Conference - 3
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha - 2
Muslim League Kerala State Committee - 2
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen - 1
Bodoland People's Front - 1
Kerala Congress (Mani) - 1
VCK - 1
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) - 159
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - 116
Janata Dal-United - 20
Shiv Sena - 11
Akali Dal - 4
Asom Gana Parishad - 1
Rashtriya Lok Dal - 5
Telangana Rashtra Samithi - 2
Third Front - 80
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - 21
AIADMK - 9
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) - 14
MDMK - 1
Janata Dal-Secular - 3
CPI-M - 16
CPI - 4
Forward Bloc - 2
Revolutionary Socialist Party - 2
Telegu Desam Party (TDP) - 6
Haryana Janhit Congress - 1
Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) - 1
Fourth Front - 26
Samajwadi Party - 22
RJD - 4
Others - 14
Assam United Democratic Front - 1
Bahujan Vikas Aaghadi - 1
Swabhimani Paksha - 1
Nagaland People's Front - 1
Sikkim Democratic Front - 1
Independents - 9
Navjot Sidhu wins, Vinod Khanna loses in Punjab
Chandigarh, May 16 (IANS): Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retained his Amritsar Lok Sabha seat even as party colleague and actor Vinod Khanna lost from the adjoining Gurdaspur in Punjab Saturday.
The chirpy Sidhu, who has been judging TV laughter challenge shows in recent years, was not exactly laughing his way to victory as he managed to win with a margin of just 7,332 votes over his Congress rival Om Prakash Soni.
Sidhu had won the seat in the 2004 general elections by a margin of nearly 110,000 votes.
Congress supporters protested against the authorities in Amritsar, alleging that the result was fudged to favour Sidhu. The BJP leader had trailed Soni for the most part of the day.
Vinod Khanna could not retain the Gurdaspur seat for the fourth time as he was defeated by former Punjab minister Pratap Singh Bajwa of the Congress by 8,359 votes.
The Election Commission finally declared Santosh Chaudhary of the Congress as the winner on the Hoshiarpur (reserved) seat by a slender margin of 291 votes after a snag in an electronic voting machine (EVM) delayed the declaration of the result of this seat for several hours.
For the Anandpur Sahib seat, Punjab Youth Congress President Ravneet Sigh Bittu defeated Daljeet Singh Cheema of the state's ruling Akali Dal by over 66,000 votes.
Out of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, the Congress won eight while the ruling Akali Dal-BJP alliance won five.
The Akalis won four out of these seats, including the crucial Bathinda seat where Harsimrat Kaur, wife of Akali Dal president and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal defeated Raninder Singh, son of former Congress chief minister Amarinder Singh, by a margin of over 120,000 votes.
The Akali Dal-BJP combine had won 11 seats in the 2004 general elections while the Congress had only two seats.
Chidambaram wins after nail-biting finish
He was declared loser before he finally romped home. Home Minister P. Chidambaram had a close shave in his Sivaganga constituency as he beat his closest rival, AIADMK's Raja Kannappan, by around 3,000 votes.
Political analysts had predicted that that Chidambaram would have a tough time as there was little infrastructural development in his constituency, especially considering his status.
Though there was a spurt in new bank branches in the constituency, that apparently did not impress people.
In Sivaganga, Thevars consist a sizeable group followed by Yadavas and the Pallar part of Dalits as against Chettiars who constitute relatively small group. This caste grouping seems to have worked in favour of Kannappan.
For a large part of the day since the counting of votes started in the morning, Chidambaram was trailing his opponent Kannappan.
He was first declared defeated, by about 3,000 votes, after which he sought a recount.
On recount, he was found to be the winner, following which Kannappan wanted a recount.
There was violence during the second recount, with AIADMK workers clashing with police near the counting centre, police officials said here.
Mamata wins Kolkata South
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee registered her sixth consecutive victory from the Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat, trouncing her nearest rival, Rabin Deb of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) by 219,571 votes.
Banerjee, who has been winning from this seat since 1991, had defeated Deb in 2004 also.
Banerjee, who created a sensation by stunning CPI-M veteran Somnath Chatterjee in Jadavpur constituency on her electoral debut in 1984, shifted to Kolkata South after losing to Malini Bhattacharya in 1989.
Jaipal Reddy, three other ministers win, Renuka Chowdary loses
Four out of five central ministers from Andhra Pradesh were re-elected to the Lok Sabha Saturday.
Senior Congress leader and Minister for Urban Development S. Jaipal Reddy, Minister of State for Human Resources D. Purandareswari, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Pannabaka Lakshmi and Minister of State for Defence Pallam Raju were all re-elected.
Minister of State for Women Development and Child Welfare Renuka Chowdary missed the hat trick from Khammam Lok Sabha seat as N. Nageswara Rao of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) defeated her by 120,000 votes.
Renuka had defeated Nageswara Rao in 2004 polls by over 100,000 votes.
Jaipal Reddy was elected from newly-created Chevella Lok Sabha seat by over 25,000 votes. In the last elections he was elected from Miryalguda, which was scrapped during delimitation of constituencies.
Purandareswari, daughter of TDP founder and former chief minister N.T. Rama Rao, was elected from Visakhapatnam. In 2004, she was elected from Bapatla.
Pannabaka Lakshmi was elected from Bapatla. Pallam Raju was re-elected from Kakinada.
Congress sweeps Delhi 7-0 on development plank (Third Lead)
The Congress made it a clean sweep in the national capital Saturday winning all the seven Lok Sabha seats. And party leaders are attributing it to "good governance" and its development plank - the victory coming six months after the party scored a thumping win in last year's assembly elections.
According to Congress party, it was the development programmes of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and work carried out by the Delhi government that attracted people towards the party.
Expressing happiness over the party's clean sweep in Delhi, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said: "I expected it (the results). My expectations have come true. I am grateful to the people of Delhi".
"The people of Delhi have begun to understand that governments are all about honest governments. There will be better coordination now. The slogan of aam aadmi (common man) was not a hollow slogan - we have done it in education, employment," Dikshit told reporters.
Congress' four sitting parliamentarians - Ajay Maken from New Delhi, Kapil Sibal from Chandni Chowk, Krishna Tirath from northwest Delhi and Sandeep Dikshit from east Delhi - retained their seats defeating their nearest BJP rivals.
Delhi Congress chief Agarwal defeated BJP's B.L. Sharma Prem from northeast Delhi while to everyone's surprise Congress MLA from Dwarka, Mahabal Mishra, defeated three time BJP MLA Jagdish Mukhi.
In south Delhi constituency Sajjan Kumar's brother Ramesh Kumar defeated BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri.
For Congress it was the "negative" ideology of the BJP that lead to its defeat while many Delhi BJP leaders blame infighting as the reason for party's defeat in the national capital. However, some other admit that development was the main factor behind the loss.
"The BJP was engaged in negative campaigning and they did not have any policy or plans to attract voters. The development work done by the party has brought fruits in this elections," said Agarwal.
"Congress policies are for the common man and people have voted for that. No doubt Sheilaji has done good work but the policies are formulated at the centre. We want to make a government for the common man," said Tirath.
"We accept people's mandate and will work again for the party. I think BJP was defeated following internal fight among the party workers," said BJP candidate from south Delhi, Ramesh Bidhuri.
However, Delhi BJP denied the charge saying people voted the Congress for formation Of a stable government at the centre.
"Infighting is not the reason for loss. It is people's mandate as they wanted a stable government at the centre. In 1999, we had swept elections winning all the seven seats under Atalji's leadership," said Delhi BJP spokesperson Mewa Ram Arya.
"We accept people's mandate and the party will keep working. Even Left has suffered such a huge setback. We should see the mandate of national capital in that context," Arya added.
"Everything starts from zero, we will start working from scratch. We accept people's verdict. Elections in Delhi BJP are due and its natural that there will be some changes in the organisation in Delhi," said Delhi BJP secretary Virendra Sachdeva.
Shatrughan Sinha proves to be the real 'Bihari babu'
Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Shatrughan Sinha and Shekhar Suman of the Congress, both showbiz stars who were based in Mumbai, were pitted against each in the Patna Saheb constituency in a keenly followed contest. But on Saturday it was Sinha who proved to be the real 'Bihari babu'.
Suman is an actor and host of the popular TV talk-show "Movers and Shakers" while Sinha is a Bollywood veteran and a judge of a talent show called the "The Shotgun Show". Both belong to the Kayasths caste whose members account for over 500,000 votes in the urban constituency.
Sinha, who has been minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, was twice member of the Rajya Sabha. Both Sinha and Suman were contesting for the Lok Sabha for the first time.
"People voted for Shatrughan Sinha for his political identity and support of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. After all Shatrughan is in politics for decades unlike Shekhar Suman," said Ashok Singh, a magazine stall owner.
Abhisekh Mahto, a government official, told IANS: "BJP's Shatrughan Sinha attracted us for the simple reason that he is known as 'Bihari babu' across India as his roots are here and he was backed by Nitish Kumar."
Sanju Devi, a resident of Patna said she was happy that Shatrughan Sinha defeated Shekhar Suman.
"Shekhar is a fresher in politics compared to Shatrughan, who has been a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP government," she said.
Similarly, Suresh Prasad who runs a tea stall at the busy Ashok Rajpath area here said that he was happy that Sinha had won the elections but disappointed that the BJP performed badly across the country.
"I supported Shatrughan for senior BJP leader L.K. Advani as I was sure that he will be the next prime minister."
There were some, however, who were cheering for Suman.
Fazal Imam, a management student said: "I am sad that Shekhar Suman of the Congress lost the elections. I voted for him because I like Rahul Gandhi, the star campaigner of the Congress."
It was a battle between two celebrities of Bihar, who had returned from Mumbai to try their luck in the political battlefield.
Prominent winners and losers in Lok Sabha polls
WINNERS:
Sonia Gandhi, Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh
Rahul Gandhi, Amethi, Uttar Pradesh
L.K. Advani, Gandhinagar
Lalu Prasad, Saran, Bihar
Rajnath Singh, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh
Mamata Banerjee, Kolkata Dakshin
Varun Gandhi, Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh
H.D. Deve Gowda, Hassan, Karnataka
Jaya Prada, Rampur, Uttar Pradesh
Shatrughan Sinha, Patna Saheb
Priya Dutt, Mumbai North Central
Shashi Tharoor, Thiruvananthapuram
P. Chidambaram, Sivaganga, Tamil Nadu
Sachin Pilot, Ajmer, Rajasthan
Harsimrat Kaur, Bathinda, Punjab
Preneet Kaur, Patiala, Punjab
LOSERS:
Ram Vilas Paswan, Hajipur, Bihar
Lalu Prasad, Patliputra, Bihar
Janardhana Poojary, Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka
Margaret Alva, Uttara Kannada, Karnataka
Vaiko, Virudunagar, Tamil Nadu
Mani Shankar Aiyar, Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu
A.R. Antulay, Raigarh, Maharashtra
Sajjad Lone, Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir
Shankarsinh Vagela, Panchmahals, Gujarat
S. Bangarappa, Shimoga, Karnataka
Manvendra Singh, Barmer, Rajasthan
Vinod Khanna, Gurdaspur, Punjab
Mohammed Salim, Kolkata Uttar
Hannan Mollah, Uluberia, West Bengal
Giridhar Gomango, Koraput, Orissa