India's BJP and AAP score historic wins: As it happened
Live Reporting
The day belongs to BJP and AAP
The day belonged to the BJP which is headed to win Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa for a second term.
But the day will not be complete without mentioning the impressive victory of the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab where it’s set to win 92 out of the state's 117 assembly seats.
With those details, we’re ending our coverage. Thank you for being with us.
Today’s live page team included Sharanya Hrishikesh, Zoya Mateen, Anshul Verma, Andrew Clarence and Meryl Sebastian.
Yogi Adityanath and Bhagwant Mann: The big winners of the day
- In Manipur, incumbent chief minister N Biren Singh from the BJP defeated his Congress rival by a handsome margin
- Incumbent Goa CM Pramod Sawant survived a scare in Sanquelim before winning by a few hundred votes - but even if the BJP forms the government, there is no guarantee he will return as CM
- Some other incumbent and former chief ministers faced major disappointments.
- Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi lost from both the seats he contested, adding insult to the Congress’s injury
- Two other former CMs from Punjab, Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal, also lost their seats. Mr Badal's son Sukhbir Singh Badal also lost, outlining the major challenge before the 100-year-old Shiromani Akali Dal in the state
- Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami lost from Khatima even as his party, the BJP, was set to return to power in the state
- Giving him company was former CM Harish Rawat, who led the Congress’s campaign in the state - he lost from Lalkuwa
The big losers
As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) celebrate their wins, some big candidates are mourning their unexpected defeat.
Punjab's incumbent Congress Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi not only failed to lead his party to victory, but also lost in both seats he contested - Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur.The Congress' decision to pick the low-profile leader from the Dalit (formerly untouchable) community as its chief minister struck many as a smart move. It was meant to appeal to the sizeable Dalit vote as well as silence big egos in the party. But the day ended badly for Mr Channi and his party.
Former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who led the Congress to an impressive victory in 2017, has lost his first election since quitting the party.He
had contested from his traditional seat of Patiala Urban - which he had
won in every election since 2002. But this time he was representing his
brand new party, Punjab Lok Congress.The normally loquacious Navjot Singh Sidhu has been silent since conceding defeat in his Amritsar East seat earlier in the day.The cricketer-turned-politician was in the BJP before he switched to the Congress - he won on their ticket in 2017. He spent the months leading up to the election needling Mr Singh until the latter resigned.Veteran politicians Sukhbir Singh Badal and Parkash Singh Badal, both members of the regional Shiromani Akali Dal, lost their seats in the Punjab assembly for the first time in decades.Parkash Singh Badal lost the Lambi seat by 11,000 votes, and his son, Sukhbir Singh Badal, lost by 31,000 votes in Jalalabad.Swami Prasad Maurya, a former Uttar Pradesh minister from the politically crucial Other Backward Class (OBC) - a swathe of lower and intermediate castes - resigned from the BJP and joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) in a blaze of publicity earlier this year.But he is set to lose his Fazilnagar seat by a sizeable margin to a BJP candidate.Keshav Prasad Maurya, the
deputy CM of UP, who was the BJP’s OBC face in this election is
trailing behind the Samajwadi Party candidate by around 2,000 votes.Pushkar Singh Dhami, the BJP’s incumbent CM from Uttarakhand lost from the Khatima seat even as his party looks set to retain power.Harish Rawat, the former Congress chief minister from Uttarakhand, lost from the Lalkuwa seat.
The
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have much to
celebrate today - the former is set to retain power in Uttar Pradesh
and Uttarakhand, and nearly at the halfway mark in Goa and Manipur,
while the latter posted a spectacular win in Punjab.As
counting wraps up, the day clearly belongs to the two men who created
history in their respective states - incumbent Uttar Pradesh chief
minister Yogi Adityanath and future Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann.In UP, Mr Adityanath led the BJP to victory for a second straight term, breaking a jinx of more than a quarter century.Mr Mann’s popularity with voters helped his party soar to a convincing win in Punjab - the first state outside Delhi where AAP will form a government. The victory will boost AAP’s national ambitions and encourage it to expand its presence in other states.
These are the other big takeaways from the day:
Former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who led the Congress to an impressive victory in 2017, has lost his first election since quitting the party.He
had contested from his traditional seat of Patiala Urban - which he had
won in every election since 2002. But this time he was representing his
brand new party, Punjab Lok Congress.
Keshav Prasad Maurya, the
deputy CM of UP, who was the BJP’s OBC face in this election is
trailing behind the Samajwadi Party candidate by around 2,000 votes.Pushkar Singh Dhami, the BJP’s incumbent CM from Uttarakhand lost from the Khatima seat even as his party looks set to retain power.Harish Rawat, the former Congress chief minister from Uttarakhand, lost from the Lalkuwa seat.BJP set to script historic win in Manipur
Zoya Mateen
BBC News, Delhi
The BJP appears to be within touching distance of a historic moment in Manipur - for the first time, the party has enough seats to form the government on its own.
It is currently leading in 30 seats - just one short of the 31 required to reach the halfway mark in the 60-member assembly. Chief Minister N Biren Singh has, despite months of infighting, emerged victorious in Heingang for the fifth consecutive term.
He has also faced stiff criticism on a host of issues, including his government's refusal to repeal AFSPA, a controversial law that gives the army sweeping powers in a region with a history of separatism.
The party has ruled the state in alliances with smaller parties since 2017 but this time, it contested all 60 seats.
If the BJP does manages to secure a simple majority, it would be a significant boost to its presence in India's north-east. Of course, things could change at the last minute as they did in 2017 when the Congress, despite being the single-largest party, failed to form the government.
Since winning parliamentary elections in 2014, the BJP has formed a government or is part of the ruling coalition in six out of seven north-eastern states.
Reality Check
Has women's safety improved in UP?
Well-known actor and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member, Hema Malini, has said that the safety of women improved in Uttar Pradesh after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took charge in 2017.
“Yogiji has given security to women. Security was in bad shape previously,” she told the Indian news channel, NDTV.
This claim also came up during election rallies and campaigns in the state, but it is not really borne out by the available data.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the total number of recorded crimes against women was 156,634 for the period from 2013 to 2016 inclusive.
If you look at the years after the BJP’s took charge - from 2017 to 2020 inclusive, the figure for the total number of crimes against women goes up to 224,694 - a rise of 43%.
But the number of rape cases reported in that period did fall by 2.3% compared with the previous four years.
However, a report by the National Commission for Women (NCW) showed that of the 31,000 complaints about abuse or harassment received by them nationally in 2021, over half came from Uttar Pradesh state.
The neglected shrines of India's temThe Ram temple at Ayodhya - a grand new shrine that will stand on a site that was once contested between Hindus and Muslims - has been a big part of the BJP's campaign in Uttar Pradesh.
The temple is being built on the site where the Babri Masjid was torn down by Hindu mobs in 1992, fulfilling a decades-long promise by the BJP.
Analysts say the upcoming temple has paid rich political dividends to the BJP.
But beyond the main temple, the city is dotted with smaller and older shrines which priests say need to be preserved.
The BBC's Nitin Srivastava and Neha Sharma report.
Video content
Watch: BJP party workers celebrate Uttar Pradesh win
India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looks set for a comfortable win in the bellwether state of Uttar Pradesh.
BBC Hindi's Nitin Srivastava reports from the BJP office in Lucknow, where celebrations have begun.
BJP declares victory in Goa
BJP looks set to return in Goa with wins in 14 seats and leads in six more, taking it to the halfway mark.
The party said it also had the support of three independent lawmakers and the Maharashtra Gomantak Party, a former ally, and would stake claim to form government on Thursday evening.
Reports showed BJP leader Vishwajit Rane crying with joy in his car as he left a counting centre in Valpoi.
Rane's wife Deviya was also leading in the Poriem seat.
On whether incumbent chief minister Pramod Sawant would return to the post, Rane told news agency ANI that it was a "sensitive question".
Mr Sawant won by a few hundred votes in Sanquelim. He credited the win to party workers. "It was very challenging for me because I was campaigning state-wise but couldn't reach my own constituency," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, a disgruntled Atanasio Monserrate, BJP candidate in Panaji, told reporters he won the seat despite the party working for his rival Utpal Parrikar. Utpal is the son of veteran BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, who died in 2019.
What the Uttar Pradesh results mean for its Muslims
Zoya Mateen
BBC News, Delhi
When Uttar Pradesh - one of India’s most polarised states - went to the polls, the spotlight was on its 40 million Muslims who constitute nearly 20% of the state’s population.
Lynchings, hate speech and violent crimes against Muslims have routinely made headlines under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has openly pursued his party’s Hindu nationalist agenda.
Ahead of voting, members of the community told the BBC they felt like they had been reduced to "second-class citizens".
But with election results pouring in and the verdict clearly in favour of the BJP - the party is well past the majority mark - the marginalisation of Muslims seems to have had little impact on the party's prospects.
In fact its focus on Hindu majoritarianism seems to have been the right distraction from economic woes - and its welfare measures also proved effective.
Mr Adityanath had touted his hard stance on crime in the campaign - but critics say the state is safer for some more than others.
And they fear that the BJP's win would further embolden its leaders' anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Read more here on the fear and anxiety among Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh.
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