Uttar Pradesh

Called a psephologist's nightmare, UP is always difficult to predict. So it is this year as well. Most opinion polls and now, the exit polls too put BJP as the leading party with at least 45 votes. As per my analysis, they can get a maximum of 45 votes because SP and BSP are still going strong in constituencies with their core support. But there are the two biggest battles of the country - Modi vs Kejriwal in Varanasi and Rahul Gandhi vs Smriti Irani vs Kumar Vishwas in Amethi. An upset in any of these have the potential to become international headlines. Only May 16 will tell.

Observations on the most interesting constituencies-

• Varanasi - The biggest battle of the country this year. Narendra Modi's announcement from here was on expected lines and should comfortably win from here, though  Kejri and his workers have campaigned really hard. Pulling off a surprise here is near impossible, but you never know what the UP voter thinks.
• Amethi - Rahul, having visited the booths of the constituency on polling day, created a flutter in the media that the Congress is nervous about winning this bastion of theirs. Could be the definitive seat of the year if Smriti Irani or Kumar Vishwas manage to wrest this stronghold from Congress. But most indications seem to tell "Not yet". The increased voter turnout(55% compared 42% in 2009) could be a sign of more anti-Congress votes, but they may not be enough to upstage Rahul
• Muzaffarnagar - It is appalling that both BJP and BSP have fielded members who had a role in the riots - Sanjeev Ballian and Qadir Rana in this constituency. Rana has complained to EC about bogus voting which is in favor of BJP. It is not really clear how the voters would vote here, and another important factor is that the voter turnout was 70%. Reports indicate that BJP stands to gain the most if Muslim votes get split, but it will be an unfortunate result.
• Pilibhit - Maneka Gandhi vacated her Aonla seat to constituency to escape the anger of the locals for lack of development there. She is expected to face a tough battle from SP's Budhsena Verma, but will clear the line thanks to the enormoust support for Modi in this town
• Sultanpur - Varun Gandhi has also vacated his constituency in Pilighit where he won after an inflammatory speech he made. Now, he is contesting in Sultanpur and calling himself the Sultan of Sultanpur, and is expected widely to win comfortably
• Faizabad - Home to Ayodhya, which is 5km away from Faizabad city, Modi's rally here became controversial for having used a picture of Ram. In the wake of some clashes that took place in 2012, and the perceived irresponsible attitude of the SP government, BJP looks to be the front-runner here
• Farrukhabad - It will be an interesting contest here for foreign minister Salman Khurshid, who is facing a major anti-incumbency problem which could see even Muslim votes go away from him to either BSP or BJP. It will be a triangular contest between the three parties
• Ghaziabad - It's the controversy king vs controversy queen in this constituency. BJP's V.K.Singh should be able to win against AAP's Shazia Ilmi
• Mathura - Interesting contest between Hema Malini and RLD chief Ajit Singh's son Jayant. Though Hema Malini hasn't struck the right chord through her speeches, the Modi wave is expected to go in her favor in this constituency where even loyal Jats are seen to be deserting Jayant Choudhary
• Mirzapur - Having lost by a small margin in 2009, BSP is expected to win this time from Mirzapur, a neighbouring constituency of Varanasi. BSP's Dhananjay Singh, who won from Jaunpur in 2009 faced many criminal charges and was dropped from the party this year and is contesting as an independent. This is only expected to help BSP as he will snatch some Kshatriya votes of the opponents
• Fatehpur Sikri - RLD leader Amar Singh decided to contest from this constituency in an attempt to woo Jat votes and has also brought in many Bollywood celebs to campaign for him. But BSP's Seema Upadhyay seems to be the strongest contender
• Rampur - Noor Bano is the widow of Rampur's Nawab and will pose a tough fight to BJP's Kumar Sarvesh Singh in this constituency which was won in 2009 by Mohammed Azharuddin
• Kaiserganj - This constituency could return to BJP for the first time after 1991 due to its candidate Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh who was earlier with SP, which is the dominant force here
• Firozabad - S.P.Singh Baghel, who defected from BSP to BJP has earned the wrath of Maya, who has issued a dictat to her supporters to do everything possible to defeat this traitor. Baghel, actually is one of the frontrunners in this Samajwadi Party bastion. The cross-voting could help SP retain this seat
• Gonda - 5-time MP Beni Prasad Verma will face a tougher challenge this year as the Brahmin votes in this constituency will be split between him and Kirti Vardhan Singh of BJP. Muslim votes are also going to be divided among the other contestants, making this a rare Congress vs BJP battle in the state
• Dhaurahra - BJP's Rekha is banking on a sympathy vote to see her through on a seat which came to her after the death of her husband Arun Kumar- a former block pramukh. In fact as per "The Indian Republic", she apparently doesn’t even speak much at rallies, she just folds her hands and cries. Her campaign managers, despite realising the immense value of the sympathy factor, wish their candidate would say a few words every now and then. “The Modi wave will work, but it would be good for the candidate to communicate with voters”, says one exasperated party worker. He also lets in that every time this has been conveyed to Rekha, she has responded with more tears.
• Etawah - Mulayam Singh Yadav's home constituency, but there has been a lot of public resentment against SP, so the candidate here has literally been pleading for votes and Mulayam is asking the people to save his respect. Whether they will remains to be seen

Apart from these, some high profile candidates who should register easy wins are Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli, Uma Bharti from Jhansi, Mulayam Singh Yadav from both Mainpuri and Azamgarh, Murli Manohar Joshi from Kanpur, Ajit Singh from Baghpat(not so sure)

My predictions for the 80 constituencies. Upfront disclaimer: This is the state where I predict my accuracy to be the lowest. Anything can happen in UP

No	Constituency	Predicted Winner	Party	Other Top 2 Candidate	Party
1	AGRA	Narayan Singh	BSP	Dr. Ramshankar Katheria	BJP
2	AKBARPUR	Devendra Singh Bhole	BJP	Anil Shukla Warsi	BSP
3	ALIGARH	Satish Kumar Goutam	BJP	Dr. Arvind Kumar Singh	BSP
4	ALLAHABAD	Shyama Charan Gupta	BJP	Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi	INC
5	AMBEDKAR NAGAR	Rakesh Pandey	BSP	Hariom	BJP
6	AMETHI	Rahul Gandhi	INC	Smriti Irani	BJP
7	AMROHA	Kanwar Singh Tanwar	BJP	Farhat Hasan	BSP
8	AONLA	Dharmendra Kumar	BJP	Kunwar Sarvraj Singh	SP
9	AZAMGARH	Mulayam Singh Yadav	SP	Ramakant Yadav	BJP
10	BADAUN	Dharmendra Yadav	SP	Akmal Khan Alias Chaman	BSP
11	BAGHPAT	Ajit Singh	RLD	Satpal Singh	BJP
12	BAHRAICH	Sadhvi Savitri Bai Foole	BJP	Comando Kamal Kishor	INC
13	BALLIA	Neeraj Shekhar	SP	Bharat Singh	BJP
14	BANDA	Bhairon Prasad Mishra	BJP	R. K. Singh Patel	BSP
15	BANSGAON	Kamlesh Paswan	BJP	Sadal Prasad	BSP
16	BARABANKI	P. L. Punia	INC	Kamla Prasad Rawat	BSP
17	BAREILLY	Santosh Gangwar	BJP	Praveen Singh Aron	INC
18	BASTI	Ram Prasad Chaudhary	BSP	Harish Chandra	BJP
19	BHADOHI	Virendra Singh	BJP	Rakesh Dhar Tripathi	BSP
20	BIJNOR	Jaya Prada Nahata	RLD	Kunwar Bhartendra	BJP
21	BULANDSHAHR	Dr. Bhola Singh	BJP	Kamlesh	SP
22	CHANDAULI	Anil Kumar Maurya	BSP	Ramkishun	SP
23	DEORIA	Kalraj Mishra	BJP	Niyaj Ahmad	BSP
24	DHAURAHRA	Kuwar Jitin Prasad	INC	Rekha	BJP
25	DOMARIYAGANJ	Jagdambika Pal	BJP	Muhammad Muqeem	BSP
26	ETAH	Rajveer Singh	BJP	Devendra Singh Yadav	SP
27	ETAWAH	Ashok Kumar Doharey	BJP	Premdas Kateriya	SP
28	FAIZABAD	Lallu Singh	BJP	Jitendra Kumar Singh	BSP
29	FARRUKHABAD	Salman Khurshid	INC	Jaiveer Singh	BSP
30	FATEHPUR	Niranjan Jyoti	BJP	Afzal Siddiqui	BSP
31	FATEHPUR SIKRI	Ms Seema Upadhyay	BSP	Amar Singh	RLD
32	FIROZABAD	Akshay Yadav	SP	S.P. Singh Baghel	BJP
33	GAUTAM BUDHHA NAGAR	Satish Kumar	BSP	Dr. Mahesh Sharma	BJP
34	GHAZIABAD	General V.K. Singh	BJP	Shazia Ilmi	AAP
35	GHAZIPUR	Smt Shivkanya Kushwaha	SP	Manoj Sinha	BJP
36	GHOSI	Dara Singh Chauhan	BSP	Mukhtar Ansari	QED
37	GONDA	Kirti Vardhan Singh	BJP	Beni Prasad Verma	INC
38	GORAKHPUR	Adityanath	BJP	Ram Bhual Nishad	BSP
39	HAMIRPUR	Kunwar Pushpendra Singh Chandel	BJP	Rakesh Kumar Goswami	BSP
40	HARDOI	Usha Verma	SP	Anshul Verma	BJP
41	HATHRAS	Manoj Kumar Soni	BSP	Rajesh Kumar Diwaker	BJP
42	JALAUN	Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma	BJP	Brijlal Khabri	BSP
43	JAUNPUR	Subhash Pandey	BSP	Krishna Pratap	BJP
44	JHANSI	Uma Bharati	BJP	Anuradha Sharma	BSP
45	KAIRANA	Kanwar Hassan	BSP	Hukum Singh	BJP
46	KAISERGANJ	Brij Bhusan Sharan Singh	BJP	Vinod Kumar Alias Pandit Singh	SP
47	KANNAUJ	Dimple Yadav	SP	Subrat Pathak	BJP
48	KANPUR	Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi	BJP	Sriprakash Jaiswal	INC
49	KAUSHAMBI	Shailendra Kumar	SP	Vinod Kumar Sonkar	BJP
50	KHERI	Ajay Kumar	BJP	Zafarali Naqvi	INC
51	KUSHI NAGAR	Rajesh Pandey Urf Guddu	BJP	Kunwar Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh	INC
52	LALGANJ	Neelam	BJP	Dr. Baliram	BSP
53	LUCKNOW	Rajnath Singh	BJP	Prof. Rita Bahuguna Joshi	INC
54	MACHHLISHAHR	Bholanath Alias B.P. Saroj	BSP	Tufani	SP
55	MAHARAJGANJ	Pankaj	BJP	Harsh Vardhan	INC
56	MAINPURI	Mulayam Singh Yadav	SP	Shatrughan Singh Chauhan	BJP
57	MATHURA	Hema Malini	BJP	Jayant Choudhary	RLD
58	MEERUT	Rajendra Aggarwal	BJP	Ms. Nagma	INC
59	MIRZAPUR	Samundra Bind	BSP	Surendra Singh Patel	SP
60	MISRIKH	Anju Bala	BJP	Ashok Kumar Rawat	BSP
61	MOHANLALGANJ	R.K Chaudhary	BSP	Sushila Saroj	SP
62	MORADABAD	Kunwar Sarvesh Singh	BJP	Begum Noor Bano	INC
63	MUZAFFARNAGAR	Dr. Sanjeev Balyan	BJP	Qadir Rana	BSP
64	NAGINA	Girish Chandra Jatav	BSP	Yashvir Singh	SP
65	PHULPUR	Kapil Muni Karwariya	BSP	Dharam Raj Singh Patel	SP
66	PILIBHIT	Maneka Gandhi	BJP	Budhsen Verma	SP
67	PRATAPGARH	Pramod Kumar Singh Patel	SP	Asif Nizamuddin Siddique	BSP
68	RAE BARELI	Sonia Gandhi	INC	Ajay Agrawal	BJP
69	RAMPUR	Naseer Ahmad Khan	SP	Nawab Kazim Ali Khan	INC
70	ROBERTSGANJ	Chhotelal	BJP	Pakaudi Lal Kol	SP
71	SAHARANPUR	Raghav Lakhanpal	BJP	Jagdish Singh Rana	BSP
72	SALEMPUR	Ravi Shanker Singh	BSP	Dr.Bhola Pandey	INC
73	SAMBHAL	Satyapal Singh	BJP	Aqeel-Ur-Rehman Khan	BSP
74	SANT KABIR NAGAR	Sharad Tripathi	BJP	Rajaram Nishad	PECP
75	SHAHJAHANPUR	Mithilesh Kumar	SP	Umed Singh Kashyap	BSP
76	SHRAWASTI	Atiq Ahmad	SP	Vinay Kumar Pandey	INC
77	SITAPUR	Kaiser Jahan	BSP	Rajesh Verma	BJP
78	SULTANPUR	Varun Gandhi	BJP	Ameeta Singh	INC
79	UNNAO	Brajesh Pathak	BSP	Annu Tandon	INC
80	VARANASI	Narendra Modi	BJP	Arvind Kejriwal	AAP

The seats prediction is as follows

Party	Seats
BJP	42
BSP	18
INC	5
RLD	2
SP	13