Lucknow, May 18 (IANS) The Lok Sabha election results in Uttar Pradesh may have come as a surprise to various political parties but the state has kept up its tradition of not favouring independents, with only one such candidate elected to parliament, as in previous polls.
As many as 563 independent candidates contested the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in the state but rebel Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former state chief minister Kalyan Singh was the only one to have won.
Singh contested from the Etah parliamentary seat and defeated his nearest rival Devendra Singh of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) by a margin of 128,268 votes.
Though there have been a few occasions when no independent candidate was elected from the state, there has been never a time when more than one won the election.
Since 1996, an independent candidate has won a seat from Uttar Pradesh in every poll. The state sends the maximum number of 80 MPs to the parliament.
In the 2004 polls, Harish Nagpal had won as an independent candidate from Amroha seat. In 1998 and 1999, Maneka Gandhi, mother of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Varun Gandhi won the Pilibhit seat, while Kalpanath Rai won the Ghosi seat as an independent candidate in 1996.
In the 1984 and 1991 polls, no independent candidate won a seat in the state. However, in 1980 independent candidate Rajesh Kumar Singh was elected from Firozabad and in 1989, Fasi-ur-Rahman alias Munnan Khan won the Balrampur seat.
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