Congress bags Allahabad seat 40 years after Amitabh Bachchan's feat

Prayagraj: Congress candidate Ujjwal Raman Singh on Tuesday secured a win on the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat ending the party's 40 years long dry patch when actor Amitabh Bachchan was elected.

According to the Election Commission, Singh won the seat by a margin of 58,795 votes against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Neeraj Tripathi. Singh got a total of 4,62,145 votes, while Tripathi received 4,03,350 votes.

Senior Congress leader from Allahabad Baba Abhay Awasthi said that after Bachchan, who was elected from the seat in 1984, the Congress has won the seat after 40 years.

He said before 1984, former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri won the election from the Allahabad parliamentary constituency in 1957 and 1962. "After Shastri's death in 1966, his son Harikishan Shastri won the 1967 election from here," Awasthi said.

The Congress leader added that after 1984, many big leaders like Anil Shastri, Kamla Bahuguna, Satya Prakash Malviya contested elections from this seat on Congress ticket, but lost.

Since 2014, the seat has remained with the BJP with Shyam Charan Gupta winning the constituency in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and Rita Bahuguna Joshi in the 2019 polls.

Singh (51), son of Samajwadi Party's stalwart leader and two-time MP from the Allahabad seat Rewati Raman Singh, has been an MLA from the Karchana seat of Prayagraj district.

After the Allahabad seat was given to the Congress under the INDIA bloc, Singh left the SP and joined the Congress, which announced him as its candidate from this constituency.

Tripathi (57), son of BJP leader and former West Bengal Governor late Kesari Nath Tripathi, was named as the BJP's Allahabad candidate in April, replacing outgoing MP Joshi.

Earlier, Tripathi served as the additional advocate general for the Uttar Pradesh government.

The Allahabad constituency falls in Prayagraj district and went to polls on May 25. The seat has over 18 lakh registered voters.