Varanasi, (IANS): The BJP is headed towards a clean sweep on five assembly segments in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi.
Varanasi Lok Sabha seat has five assembly segments of Varanasi Cantonment, Varanasi North, Varanasi South, Sevapuri and Rohaniya.
Bharatiya Janata Party candidates led by huge margins on all five seats till 5 p.m., as the counting continued, a poll official said.
In Varanasi North, Ravindra Jaiswal of BJP with 1,15,716 votes, was far ahead of Congress candidate Abdul Samad Ansari who trailed behind with 70,416 in the second spot.
As counting continued, in Varanasi cantonment, BJP’s Saurabh Srivstava led with 94,074 votes, followed by Anil Srivastava of Congress who had 51,620 votes.
Neelkanth Tiwari of the BJP led with 87,320 votes in Varanasi South, with Congress’ Rajesh Mishra trailing far behind with 73,728 votes, while in Rohaniya, BJP candidate Surendra Narayan Singh had 1,19,676 votes compared to Mahendra Singh Patel of the Samajwadi Party trailing behind with 62,185 votes.
Sevapuri, meanwhile, saw Neel Ratan Singh Patel of Apna Dal (Soneylal), a BJP ally, win with 1,03,423 votes, far ahead of SP’s Surendra Singh Patel who had 54,241 votes.
Bahujan Samaj Party candidates trailed third on all five seats.
Modi camped in Varanasi for three days ahead of polls, and did road shows on all three days.
Apart from the Prime Minister, several key ministers including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, and BJP Chief Amit Shah had camped in Varanasi.