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Taking an early lead Samajwadi Party was ahead in 122 seats of 403 in Uttar Pradesh Assembly in the counting of votes which was underway.

As per the trend on 236 seats, BJP sprang a surprise by leading in 60 seats, whereas ruling BSP was leading in 42 seats. Congress—RLD alliance was trailing on the fourth place by leading in 21 seats.

Other political parties including independents were leading on six seats.

Among prominent candidates BJP vice—president Kalraj Mishra in Lucknow East, Uma Bharati in Charkhari, Shivpal Singh Yadav in Jaswantnagar, Gopal Tandon in Lucknow North were leading, whereas cabinet minister Nakul Dubey was trailing in Bakshi ka Talab seat, BJP state president Surya Pratap Shahi in Pathardeva, and UPPCC president Rita Bahuguna Joshi in Lucknow Cantt.

Fate of more than 6,500 candidates would be decided today as counting for all 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh for which polling was held in seven—phases started here on Tuesday morning.

In last assembly elections held in 2007, 6086 candidates contested the polls.

Stakes are high for all the major political parties including BJP, BSP, SP and Congress-RLD alliance as there was multi-cornered contest on a number of seats.

Following reports of exit polls, mood is upbeat in SP with many of them predicting a clear edge for the party.

In the last elections, BSP won absolute majority with 206 seats, SP, which was the ruling party before 2007 elections, was reduced to 97, BJP got 51 and Congress 22.

Prominent candidates whose fate would be decided include Kalraj Mishra, Uma Bharati, Surya Pratap Shahi, Kesari Nath Tripathi, Hukum Singh of BJP, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Pramod Tiwari, Louis Khurshid of Congress, Sukhdeo Rajbhar, Swami Prasad Maurya, Ramveer Singh of BSP, Mata Prasad Pandey, Shivpal Singh Yadav, Mohd Azam Khan of SP and Jayant Chowdhary of RLD.

SAD-BJP alliance ahead in early trends

The ruling SAD-BJP alliance was ahead in Punjab leading in 57 seats while Congress was leading in 33 as per early trends available in the counting of votes for 117 Assembly constituencies till 9.30 a.m.

The Congress was leading in Ghanaur, Amritsar Central, Khadoor Sahab, Garh Shankar, Talwandi Sabo, Rajpura, Fatehgarh Churian, Samana and Patiala. Former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was leading in Patiala and his son Raninder Singh from Samana.

The SAD was leading in Raja Sansi, Sultanpur Lodhi, Faridkot, Nabha, Barnala, Attari, Ropar and Balachaur.

Punjab Assembly Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon was trailing in Fatehgarh Churian.

The BJP was leading in Phagwara, Anandpur Sahab and Dasuya while an Independent was leading from Amritsar East.

Uttrakhand

Ruling BJP was ahead in six seats in Uttarakhand with Congress close behind in five seats. The trends were availabe for 11 out of 70 seats.

In 60-member Manipur Assembly, trends were available for four seats with Congress leading in all of them.