Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav were leading from the Varanasi, Lucknow, Rae Barelli and the Kannauj Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, respectively, according to news channels.
Out of the 80 seats in the state, the BJP was leading in 51 while the INDIA bloc was ahead in 23, according to trends for 74 seats.
According to the trends at 8:40 am from postal ballot counting, Modi was ahead of his nearest rival Congress's Ajay Rai from Varanasi, while Singh was ahead of SP's Ravidas Mehrotra. Gandhi was ahead of BJP's Dinesh Pratap Singh in Rae Bareli and Yadav ahead of BJP's Subrat Pathak in Kannuaj.
