Counting of votes began in Uttar Pradesh at 8 am on March 10, and early trends have brought good news for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which hopes to return to power in the Hindi heartland state.
Here are key takeaways from the state so far:
*As of 12.15 pm, the BJP is leading in 248 seats, comfortably over the magic number required to form the government in the state. The Samajwadi Party has put up a strong show this year with a lead in 112 seats.
*CM Yogi Adityanath is leading from Gorakhpur Urban. This is the first time that the chief minister is contesting an Assembly election.
*As of 12.10 pm, the BJP has a vote share of 42.3 per cent votes, followed by SP with 31.6 per cent and BSP with 12.9 per cent.
*OP Rajbhar of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party is leading from Zahoorabad constituency, CM Yogi Adityanath is leading with a massive margin from Gorakhpur Urban, Akhilesh Yadav is leading from Karhal and Samajwadi Party's Swami Prasad Maurya is trailing by a margin of 11,179 in Fazilnagar.
*BSP and Congress have put up a dismal performance so far with leads in less than 10 seats each.
*Police said 250 CAPF companies have been deployed. A CAPF company usually has around 70-80 personnel. As many as 625 gazetted officers of the UP Police, 1,807 inspectors, 9,598 sub-inspectors, 11,627 head constables and 48,649 constables have also been deployed, the officials added.
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