After UP Civic polls debacle, Akhilesh Yadav cries foul, says BJP won due to EVMs

Crying foul, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief and former CM Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday blamed the "faulty EVMs" for his party’s debacle in Friday’s Civic polls in Uttar Pradesh.

Addressing a gathering in Kolkata, Akhilesh Yadav said, “BJP's winning percentage is 46% wherever polls were conducted via EVMs and 15% when it was done via ballot papers.”

Senior SP leader and former UP minister Azam Khan also sang the same tunes and said there “EVM setting” as where ever ballots papers were used, Samajwadi party won and BJP lost.

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The BJP had swept the Uttar Pradesh Civic polls by winning 14 of the 16 mayoral seats as Yogi Adityanath cleared his first major electoral test after taking over as Chief Minister March.

Akhilesh Yadav-led SP failed to win a single mayoral seat.

Mayawati-led BSP sprang a surprise as it thwarted the challenge from BJP candidates to win the mayoral posts in western UP's Aligarh and Meerut towns.

The Congress had to face major embarrassment of losing in its bastion Amethi, the Lok Sabha constituency of its vice president Rahul Gandhi.