Lucknow, 4 June

The INDIA bloc was leading in 44 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and the BJP-led NDA in 35, according to trends on the Election Commission website.

INDIA bloc parties SP and Congress were leading in 37 and 7 seats, the election panel's data for polls to the 80 parliamentary constituencies in the state showed. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading in 33 seats and its allies Rashtriya Lok Dal and Apna Dal in one seat each.

Chandrashekhar of Azad Samaj Party (Kanshiram) was leading by 1,09,799 votes over BJP's Om Kumar. Among the prominent leaders who have taken comfortable leads over their rivals is Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Lucknow, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple Yadav in Kannauj and Mainpuri, Congress candidates Rahul Gandhi and Kishori Lal Sharma in Rae Bareli and Amethi.

The BJP's Hema Malini is leading in Mathura while Arun Govil is trailing in Meerut. Former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh's son Karan Bhushan Singh is leading by 82,236 votes over SP's Bhagat Ram in Kaiserganj.

Brij Bhushan was denied a ticket by the party this time and his son was given a chance due to the controversy due to women wrestlers' allegations of sexual harassment against them. Senior BJP leaders Smriti Irani, Ajay Mishra Teni and Maneka Gandhi were trailing in the Amethi, Kheri, and Sultanpur while Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal(S) is leading in the Mirzapur constituency.

In the Faizabad seat in Ayodhya district, BJP's Lallu Singh is trailing by 8,512 votes against SP's Awadhesh Prasad. The construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was cited as an achievement by the BJP leaders during the election campaign. In Ghazipur, slain mafia Mukhtar Ansari's brother Afzal Ansari, who is an SP candidate, is leading by 56,326 votes against BJP's Paras Nath Rai.

NDA ally Nishad Party chief Sanjay Nishad's son Praveen Nishad (BJP candidate) is trailing in Sant Kabir Nagar by 78,427 votes against SP's Laximkant Pappu Nishad. Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party Chief Om Prakash Rajbhar's son Arvind Rajbhar is also trailing in the Ghosi seat by 62,973 against SP's Rajeev Rai.