Gorakhpur. BJP candidate from Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency Ravi Kishan Shukla may have succeeded in hoisting the flag of victory for the second consecutive time, but this time SP candidate Kajal Nishad from INDI alliance gave him a tough fight.

Although the lead that Ravi Kishan made from the first round remained till the end, the margin of victory was very less. In the 2019 elections, Ravi Kishan defeated the joint candidate of SP-BSP alliance, Rambhual Nishad, by 3 lakh 1 thousand 664 votes. This time the margin of victory over Kajal was reduced to 1 lakh 3 thousand 432.

Last time 11 lakh 84 thousand 635 votes were counted for the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat, which is considered the seat of Gorakshapeeth, in which Ravi Kishan got 7 lakh 17 thousand 122 votes, i.e. 60.54 percent. In this election 11 lakh 54 thousand 413 votes were counted. In this Ravi Kishan got only 5 lakh 85 thousand 834 votes, i.e. 50.75 percent, which is 9.79 percent less than last time. Whereas Kajal Nishad got 4 lakh 82 thousand 308 votes.

When the counting of votes started at 8 am, Ravi Kishan took the lead in the counting of postal ballots. Half an hour later, when the turn of EVMs came, Ravi Kishan was still ahead by 7,771 votes in the first round of counting. This lead increased to 17,493 in the fourth round, 23,418 in the eighth round and 34,881 in the 12th round. Till then, supporters, party officials and workers were on tenterhooks.

As soon as Ravi Kishan crossed the 50,000 mark in the counting of nearly 7 lakh votes by 2:30 pm, everyone became confident of his victory. After counting of nearly 9.50 lakh votes, the margin crossed 75,000. Until the last 31 rounds of counting, there was no stage in which Kajal Nishad could take the lead, but due to the close competition, Ravi Kishan's supporters could not start celebrating even after more than half the rounds of counting.

Even though the lotus kept blooming from the first to the last phase, be it the narrow margin of victory or the reduced number of seats for the BJP in the state, Ravi Kishan's face remained gloomy till noon. On the other hand, from the agents present at the counting venue to the supporters standing outside, everyone remained in a dilemma till the counting of 17 rounds.

Everyone was on tenterhooks but when the margin touched 50 thousand, the supporters slowly got into a celebratory mood. Meanwhile, a smile had started spreading on Ravi Kishan's face. Slowly, the atmosphere of celebration started building up. Ravi Kishan was garlanded by his supporters as soon as the counting of the last round ended.

Agents were present in the university campus and supporters gathered outside started expressing their happiness over the victory by playing Holi with abir and gulaal. The surrounding environment echoed with the slogans of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Ravi Kishan. The series of congratulations started from paan shops to social media on all the major roads and intersections of the city which continued till late night.