New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is headed to a gigantic victory in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli, currently has the highest winning margin in Uttar Pradesh. Mr Gandhi is ahead of his nearest rival, Dinesh Pratap Singh of the BJP, by over 3 lakh votes, showed Election Commission data at 3:15 pm. In contrast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is leading by over 1.4 lakh votes against his nearest rival, the Congress' Ajay Rai, in Varanasi.
Sonia Gandhi, who had held the Rae Bareli seat since 2004, won by a margin of 1.67 lakh votes against Mr Singh in 2019. She opted out of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 and moved to Rajya Sabha, after which Rahul Gandhi replaced her as the Congress candidate from Rae Bareli.
Mr Gandhi had represented the Amethi Lok Sabha seat from 2004 to 2019. In the last elections, he lost Amethi to BJP's Smriti Irani, but won a second seat in Kerala and retained his MP status.
This time too he is contesting two seats - Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh) and Wayanad (Kerala) - and leading in both. In Wayanad, he is ahead of his nearest rival, Annie Raja of the CPM, by over 3 lakh votes.
The grand old party is also looking forward to wresting back its Amethi seat from the BJP with Smriti Irani trailing Congress candidate Kishori Lal by over 90,000 votes.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is ahead in 291 seats as against the opposition INDIA bloc's 233 seats, shows the latest trends. The counting has also thrown surprises in Uttar Pradesh, where the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance is ahead of the BJP.