UP Election Results 2022 Key Candidates: Yogi Adityanath will return as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for a second term, with the BJP winning the Uttar Prdaesh Assembly election, beating anti-incumbency and an aggressive Samajwadi Party.


The 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly election was held in seven phases. The elections were held on 403 seats and witnessed intense campaigning by the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party. The Congress and BSP were the other parties in the fray.


The UP polls are also an indicator of how the BJP might perform in the 2024 general election. The state sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha - the most.


Look At Some Key Candidates In Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election 2022:


Akhilesh Yadav (Karhal)


Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, contesting his first assembly election, won from the Karhal constituency in Mainpuri district. Akhilesh Yadav is currently a Lok Sabha MP from Azamgarh.


Karhal is considered to be a Samajwadi Party bastion and since 1993, the SP has never lost the election here. The constituency forms part of Mulayam Singh Yadav's Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat.


The BJP pitted Union minister of state SP Singh Baghel against Akhilesh in the high-profile seat. Except for the Bahujan Samaj Party and the BJP, no other party has fielded candidates on this seat.


Karhal has about 3.7 lakh electorate, including 1.4 lakh (or 37 per cent) Yadavs, 34,000 Shakhyas (OBCs) and around 14,000 Muslims. The election result of Karhal Assembly constituency is likely to impact the politics of Uttar Pradesh.


During campaigning, Akhilesh Yadav raked up the employment issue and promised that 11 lakh vacant government jobs would be filled if his party was voted to power.


Yogi Adityanath (Gorakhpur)


UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, also contesting his first Assembly elections, won from Gorakhpur (Urban) by 1,02,892 votes. Adityanath represented Gorakhpur five times in Lok Sabha since 1998.


Yogi Adityanath, who took oath as Chief Minister on March 19, 2017, is the third CM (after Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati) to complete his five-year tenure.


Yogi Adityanath is the head of the Gorakhnath temple, the high seat of the Nath monastic sect founded by Matsyendranath in the 10th century. The temple is a politically influential shrine.


The others contesting from the seat are SP's Subhawati Shukla and Chandrashekhar Azad, head of Bhim Army and Azad Samaj Party.


Subhawati's husband, late Upendra Dutt Shukla, was vice president of BJP and his rivalry with Yogi Adityanath is well known in the local circles.


Chandrashekhar Azad (Gorakhpur)


Head of Bhim Army and Azad Samaj Party, Chandra Shekhar lost the elections from Gorakhpur against UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Azad contested the elections for the first time and received only 7458 votes.


Chandra Shekhar's rallies focused on Dalit atrocities in the BJP regime and he used his campaign to consolidate the Dalit vote.


Chandra Shekhar, who formed the Bhim Army in 2014, gained popularity in 2017 after hosting protests in the heart of New Delhi over anti-Dalit violence in his home district of Saharanpur.


Swami Prasad Maurya (Fazilnagar)


Former Uttar Pradesh minister in the Yogi Adityanath government and Samajwadi Party candidate Swami Prasad Maurya lost from Kushinagar's Fazilnagar seat by 41,781 votes. The Fazilnagar seat was won by BJP's Surendra Singh Kushwaha.


The OBC leader joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) weeks ahead of the UP election. He had said he quit the BJP due to "gross neglect" towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small traders.


Maurya, who hails from the other backward class (OBC) community, had crossed over to the BJP from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) before the 2017 assembly polls.


He is a five-time MLA from Padrauna, while his daughter Sanghmitra Maurya is a BJP MP and represents Badaun in the Lok Sabha.


The Congress fielded Manoj Kumar Singh from the seat, while the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate was Ilyas Ansari. BJP nominated Surendra Singh Kushwaha from the seat.


The Fazilnagar assembly segment has around 90,000 Muslim voters, 55,000 Maurya Kushwahas, 50,000 Yadavs, 30,000 Brahmins, 40,000 Kurmi-Sainthwars, 30,000 Vaishyas and about 80,000 Dalits.


Aditi Singh (Raebareli Sadar)


Aditi Singh, who had quit as a sitting Congress MLA to join the BJP ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, won the Raebareli Sadar seat. Aditi Singh crossed over to BJP from Congress in November last year.


Aditi got 1.02 lakh votes after an intense electoral fight with nearest rival Ram Pratap Yadav of the Samajwadi Party who polled 95,254 votes, the Election Commission website showed.


Aditi Singh (34) was first elected to the UP Legislative Assembly in 2017. She is the daughter of five-time MLA late Akhilesh Singh.


In 2017, the US-educated Aditi Singh was fielded by Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from the seat and Congress won it by a record 1,28,319 votes. However, she had not been on good terms with the Congress leadership since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.


Rae Bareli is the lone seat held by the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and is represented by Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha. Congress fielded Manish Chauhan from the seat in the UP election. 


Azam Khan (Rampur)


Veteran Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan won the Rampur seat by 54,862 votes. Azam Khan has been an MLA from this assembly seat nine times.


He is contesting the election from prison, where he has been lodged for a number of cases registered against him.


Azam Khan was elected MLA for the first time from Rampur in the year 1980. In the 2017 elections, Azam had got 10,2100, or about 47.74 per cent of the votes.


The descendant of the erstwhile Rampur royal family, Kazim Ali Khan (alias Naved Miyan) contested against Azam Khan in the Rampur seat on the Congress ticket, while the BJP had nominated Akash Saxena as its candidate.


Asha Singh (Unnao)


Congress candidate Asha Singh, the mother of the Unnao rape victim, lost from Unnao constituency and managed to get only 1,544 votes. The seat was won by BJP's Pankaj Gupta, who bagged 1,26,303 votes.


Asha Singh is the mother of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped in Unnao on June 4, 2017. Former BJP member Kuldeep Singh Sengar was convicted for rape in 2019 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Asha Singh's husband was also brutally beaten, allegedly by Sengar's brother. He later succumbed to the injuries.