Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yogi Adityanath won Gorakhpur Urban seat with a massive margin of 54,858 votes.

His victory comes as the BJP is on course to retain power in Uttar Pradesh. The counting of the votes polled in assembly elections is underway. According to the Election Commission of India, Adityanath, who is contesting the Assembly elections for the first time, received 85,356 while his nearest rival SP candidate Subhawati Upendra Dutt Shukla got 30,498 votes.

Azad Samaj Party chief Chandra Shekhar Azad garnered only 4,501 votes.

Adityanath represented the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat until 2017 when he was chosen as the UP Chief Minister after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s landslide victory in the state polls.

The Gorakhpur Sadar seat had also been a bastion of the BJP, which the party had never lost since 1967 since the days of the Jan Sangh.

Meanwhile, according to the latest trends of the Election Commission of India as the counting of the votes is underway, the BJP has 13 seats and is leading in 237 constituencies.

The Samajwadi Party is leading on 116 seats and Congress leading only in two constituencies.