How Uttar Pradesh fared in previous three Lok Sabha elections

Elections for Uttar Pradesh's 80 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases, beginning with the first phase on April 11.

Elections for Uttar Pradesh's 80 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases, beginning with the first phase on April 11.

NEW DELHI: Elections for Uttar Pradesh's 80 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases, beginning with the first phase on April 11. As per the schedule, eight parliamentary constituencies each will go to polls in the first and the second phase, to be held on April 11 and April 18, respectively. Ten constituencies will go to vote in the third phase on April 23, 13 in the fourth phase on April 29, 14 in the fifth phase on May 6, and 14 in the sixth phase on May 12. The remaining 13 constituencies will be voting in the last phase on May 19. There are 14.40 crore voters in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. The count of first-time voters stands at approximately 45 lakh, of which 16.75 lakhs are in the age of 18-19 years. How Uttar Pradesh fared in previous four Lok Sabha polls In the 2014 elections, the BJP won 71 seats in the state, securing 42.63 per cent of the votes cast. Its ally Apna Dal bagged two. The SP had won five seats with a vote share of 22.35 per cent. The BSP did not win any but secured 19.77 per cent of votes cast. The Congress registered wins on two UP seats -- Amethi and Raebareli -- in 2014, bagging 7.53 per cent of the votes. The Congress had won 21 seats in the 2009 elections in the state while the SP and the BSP won 23 and 20 seats respectively. The BJP had won 10 seats and the RLD had won five seats. In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the SP and the BSP won 35 and 19 seats respectively with 26.74 per cent and 24.67 per cent vote share, while the Congress took 9 with 12 per cent votes and the BJP 10 with 22 per cent votes. The RLD had won two seats. Five seats were won by other parties. The SP-BSP alliance Once-arch rivals Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have announced their tie-up along with the RLD in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The SP will contest 37 seats, the BSP 38, the RLD three. The alliance has left two seats for the Congress. The parties seem to have forgotten their two decade-old antagonism for a "political revolution" which they hope would "last long". The BSP-SP came close during the parliamentary by-polls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur recently wherein the BSP supported SP candidates who succeeded in winning both the seats - Gorakhpur vacated by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Phulpur by his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya. Come to 2019, if both the parties continue to have a say in their traditional vote bank, the combine can create hurdles for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the politically-crucial Uttar Pradesh, there are about 22 per cent Dalits, 45 per cent OBCs and 19 per cent Muslims, whose vote share will be decisive in the general elections this year.