On PM’s turf Varanasi, a setback for BJP, and a 49-hour battle of nerves

Samajwadi Party, Uttar Pradesh’s main opposition, has retained the teachers constituency in Varanasi and is ahead in the graduates seat. Of the 11 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has won six, the Samajwadi Party four, and the result in one seat, Varanasi graduates, is awaited. The Samajwadi Party won two out of these 11 seats last time. If it wins Varanasi graduates too, it will finish at five seats, a significant gain months ahead of the Assembly polls.

Counting in the Varanasi graduates constituency has turned into a battle of nerves. Nearly 49 hours after counting began, BJP and Samajwadi Party leaders are staging sit-ins at the counting centre, both sides accusing each other of irregularities.

While elections to the legislative council’s teachers and graduates constituencies do not capture the mood of voters across caste and age groups, they provide key clues about how the educated class is viewing contemporary issues. These results are also significant against the backdrop of the protests against unemployment and paper leaks ahead of competitive exams.

How Varanasi voted

Samajwadi Party’s Lal Bihari Yadav retained the Varanasi teachers seat, defeating the BJP’s Pramod Kumar Mishra by 5,015 votes. Chet Narayan Singh, whom the BJP supported in the 2020 election, contested as an Independent this time and finished third.

In the 2020 election, Samajwadi Party’s Lal Bihari Yadav defeated Pramod Kumar Mishra, then an Independent candidate, by 936 votes. Chet Narayan Singh, a sitting Member of Legislative Council (MLC) backed by the BJP, finished third in 2020.

In the Varanasi graduate constituency, Samajwadi Party’s sitting MLC Ashutosh Sinha is set to win big. Latest updates show his victory margin this time will likely be much better than the 2020 margin of 3,850 votes. The BJP’s Kedar Nath Singh, whom Sinha defeated in 2020, is in second place this time too.

जो न डरे आज के जुल्मों के हालात से

सब डटे रहें और जीत का प्रमाणपत्र लेकर ही उठें। हम वाराणसी शहर के अपने कार्यकर्ताओं से अपील करते हैं कि वो मतगणना केंद्र पर भोजन, पानी, छतरी और तौलिये आदि की व्यवस्था करके अपने साथियों की मदद करें और हौसलों के गीत गाकर जागते रहें… सवेरा अपना होगा।

सड़क पर लिखी वो चेतावनी याद रखें : नज़र हटी, दुर्घटना घटी!

— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) October 29, 2026

A battle of nerves

In the Varanasi graduates constituency, counting has been on for 49 hours, leading to dramatic scenes. Both the BJP and the Samajwadi Party have rushed their party cadres to the counting centre.

In a post on X on Thursday morning, Samajwadi Party chief Yadav asked workers not to leave the counting centre without collecting the victory certificate. “Everyone should stay put and leave only after receiving the victory certificate,” he wrote, sharing a picture of party leaders sitting outside the counting centre. Yadav appealed to party workers in Varanasi to arrange food, drinking water, umbrellas and towels for their colleagues and keep their morale high.

Earlier, questioning the integrity of the counting process, Yadav wrote in a post, “I hear that, after news of a recount in Varanasi, people are reaching the counting centre with Gangajal so that officials can be made to hold it in their hands and undergo a test of their integrity.” Late on Wednesday night, the BJP candidate Kedarnath demanded a recount, alleging anomalies in the counting process and attempts to manipulate it.

According to the latest updates, Samajwadi Party candidate Sinha had taken a comfortable lead over his BJP rival.

Why this result matters

The graduate and teachers constituencies of Varanasi division span eight districts – Ballia, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Varanasi, Chandauli, Bhadohi, Mirzapur and Sonbhadra. These eight districts have 47 Assembly constituencies. In the 2022 state polls, the BJP-led NDA won 28 of these seats – BJP won 22, and Apna Dal (S) and NISHAD Party won three each.

The Samajwadi Party won 14, and its then ally, Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, won four of these 47 seats in 2022. The BSP won the remaining one seat. The Rajbhar-led party is now part of the NDA, and he is a cabinet minister.

The BJP has given significant representation to these eight districts in the government – nine state cabinet ministers are from here.

The BJP had deployed its heavyweight leaders in the run-up to the legislative council polls.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath addressed a ‘teachers-graduates’ gathering on October 14 as part of the BJP campaign. Addressing the event, he called the Samajwadi Party “anti-education” and accused its previous governments of corruption in government job recruitments. He appealed to voters not to trust the Akhilesh Yadav-led party.

In his address, Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Suresh Khanna had said the BJP lost both the seats in 2020 because of “over-confidence”. On the possible reasons for defeat in this election, a senior BJP leader said, “Over-confidence and negligence prevailed this time too. A district-wise analysis will be done of polled votes.”

Another leader said Samajwadi Party workers were more active than their BJP counterparts in getting their supporters registered as voters. “The candidates and the party organization left the election to the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath instead of reaching out to voters.”