UP By-Election Results 2018: An Overview Of How Things Stand At 10:50 AM

The BJP is leading in by-elections for Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur parliament seat, but in Phulpur the Samajwadi Party has shot ahead. Both seats were held by the BJP and today's by-election is a prestige battle for the ruling party, which took on a united opposition.

• With 22,460 votes, Samajwadi Party's Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel has a narrow lead of 1,058 votes over BJP's Kaushlendra Singh Patel who currently has 21,402 votes.
  
• UP's Gorakhpur is the seat that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath held for five terms. He vacated it last year after becoming chief minister, following the BJP's sweep of the 2017 assembly elections, capturing 325 of the 403 assembly seat along with allies. Phulpur was vacated by his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya.
• Regional heavyweights and arch rivals Samajwadi Party and Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party have pooled resources to take on the BJP in Gorakhpur and Phulpur in what is seen as an experiment to test the ground for a larger alliance in the 2019 national election.
• Yogi Adityanath campaigned hard in both constituencies and described the by-elections as a dress rehearsal for the general election next year. "Our victory margins will be as big as in 2014," he told NDTV.  There was 47.45 per cent polling in Gorakhpur last week, and 38 per cent in Phulpur.
• In both seats, the Samajwadi Party is the BJP's main challenger, with the BSP offering support in a rare deal that includes the Samajwadi Party's support for the BSP in Rajya Sabha elections in UP later this month. "If we win, there will be a bigger alliance," promised Pravin Nishad, fielded by the Samajwadi Party in Gorakhpur.
• Mayawati, seen as the Dalit powerhouse in Uttar Pradesh, has not fielded a candidate in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. Her workers have asked the sizeable Dalit community to vote for the Samajwadi candidates, though she has not committed to a bigger partnership, waiting to see how the experiment works. The present arrangement, she has insisted, is an "agreement" not an "alliance."
• Both the Samajwadi Party and the BSP attended a dinner party hosted by the Congress' Sonia Gandhi in Delhi last night, seen as an attempt to consolidate opposition unity ahead of the 2019 national election. In the UP by-elections however, the Congress has fielded its own candidates, making it a three-way contest between the BJP, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress.