Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) candidate Rajpal Singh Baliyan has won the Budhana assembly constituency beating Umesh Malik of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by a margin of 28,301 votes.

Uttar Pradesh‘s Budhana assembly constituency was won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last assembly election held in 2017.  The BJP’s Umesh Malik Saini had won Budhana by a margin of 13201 votes over his nearest rival Pramod Tyagi of the Samajwadi Party. 

Budhana is one of five assembly segments in the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha constituency. Budhana in its current form came into being as a constituency in 2008 as a result of delimitation. For years before, it was part of the Muzaffarnagar assembly constituency. In the first assembly election in 2012, the Budhana assembly seat was won by Nawazish Alam Khan of the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate. He defeated Rajpal Singh Baliyan of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) by 10588 votes.   

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All five assembly segments in the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha constituency were won by the BJP in 2017 as the  party powered through the communally-sensitive region in western UP, winning 51 of the 73 seats in 15 districts that voted in the first phase of that year’s election. Five years later, a chunk of western UP votes again in the first phase of the state  elections, to be held on February 10, 2022. UP will vote in seven phases and results will be announced in one go on March 10. 

The BJP hopes to replicate its performance of 2017, when it bulldozed to power, winning 312 of UP’s 403 assembly seats. That gave it a brute two-thirds majority and the party chose Yogi Adityanath to be Chief Minister.    

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The Samajwadi Party, which had won in 2012, could only win 47 seats. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won even fewer seats, 19, and the Congress, which once ruled UP for years,  rolled in last with a mere seven seats. 

The Congress was last in 2012 too, but had won a more respectable 28 seats. The BJP was third that year with 47 seats. The Samajwadi Party had won with 224 seats, a comfortable majority that brought the party’s Akhilesh Yadav to the post of Chief Minister. 

Yadav ousted the BSP in 2012, relegating it to second place with 80 seats. On many seats that the BSP lost that year, the margin of victory was very small. 

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Quick facts about the Budhana Assembly seat  

Name of the assembly constituency, district: Budhana, Muzaffarnagar district 

Polling date: February 10, 2022

Phase: 1 

Sitting MLA, party: Umesh Malik, BJP 

Winning candidate, party in 2017: Umesh Malik, BJP

Runner-up name, party 2017: Pramod Tyagi, SP 

Winning margin in 2017: 13201 

Top 3 candidates 2017 :  Umesh Malik (BJP), Pramod Tyagi (SP), Saeeda Begam (BSP) 

Top 3 candidates 2012: Nawazish Alam Khan(SP), Rajpal Singh Baliyan (RLD), Yog Raj Singh (BSP)

Lok Sabha constituency: Muzaffarnagar 

Research by Ashni
Varghese MV