ExplainedElections
How Uttar Pradesh voted in 2022, and what it takes to win its 403 seats
The BJP and its allies won 273 seats last time, the Samajwadi Party nearly tripled its tally and the BSP was reduced to a single MLA. How the state's four regions split, and the arithmetic that will decide 2027.
The short answer
A party or alliance needs 202 of Uttar Pradesh's 403 Assembly seats to govern. In 2022 the BJP-led alliance won 273 seats with 43.82% of the vote, the Samajwadi Party's alliance won 125 with 36.60%, and the BSP, once a party of government, won one seat despite 12.88% of the vote. The 2024 Lok Sabha election, in which the SP won more seats than the BJP, showed how quickly that gap can close.
How many seats does it take to form a government?
202, a simple majority of the 403-member Assembly.
Uttar Pradesh has the largest legislature of any Indian state, and 80 seats in the Lok Sabha. The current Assembly’s term ends on 22 May 2027, and the election is expected in February and March 2027.
What happened in 2022?
The BJP and its allies won a second straight majority, with 273 seats.
Voting ran in seven phases between 10 February and 7 March 2022, and votes were counted on 10 March. Turnout was 61.03%.
The BJP won 255 seats on its own with 41.29% of the vote. Its allies Apna Dal (Soneylal) won 12 and the NISHAD Party six, taking the alliance to 273 with 43.82%.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) won 111 seats with 32.06%. Its partners that year, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) with eight seats, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) with six and Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) with one, took the alliance to 125 seats and 36.60%. The Congress won two seats on 2.33%, the Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) two, and the BSP one.
How did that compare with 2017?
The BJP lost seats but gained votes, because the contest became a straight fight.
In 2017 the BJP won 312 seats with 39.67%. In 2022 its vote share rose to 41.29% while its tally fell by 57. The SP climbed from 47 seats and 21.82% to 111 seats and 32.06%, as the BSP’s vote fell away. With two big blocs facing each other, the BJP’s lead translated into fewer seats than in a three-way race.
What happened to the BSP?
It collapsed from 19 seats to one.
Mayawati’s party, which has governed Uttar Pradesh four times and won a full majority on its own in 2007, polled 22.23% in 2017. In 2022 that fell to 12.88%, and in the 2024 Lok Sabha election to 9.39%, with no seats at all.
Mayawati has ruled out an alliance for 2027. “The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will contest the next Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh alone,” she told reporters in Lucknow on 7 February 2026.
Where the BSP’s remaining vote goes, especially among Dalit voters, is one of the biggest open questions of the next election.
How did the four regions vote?
The BJP alliance won every region, but the SP cut deep into Purvanchal and the west.
2022 Assembly seats by region
West UP, with Muslim populations of a quarter or more in several districts and influential Jat, Gurjar and Rajput communities, is where the SP’s alliance with the RLD did best. The opposition swept Shamli and Moradabad districts while the BJP took every seat in Agra, Mathura, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar.
Awadh, the central belt around Lucknow and Ayodhya, was the BJP’s strongest region in 2022.
Purvanchal, the eastern districts that include Gorakhpur and Varanasi, gave the SP its biggest haul. Smaller backward-caste groups such as the Nishads and Rajbhars carry weight there, which is why parties like the SBSP and NISHAD matter so much. All five seats won outside the two big alliances were in the east too.
Bundelkhand, among the poorest parts of the state and once a BSP stronghold, stayed with the BJP and its allies, with the SP taking three of its 19 seats.
Regional groupings vary between analysts, so seat counts for each region differ slightly from one study to the next.
Has anything changed since 2022?
The alliances have, and the 2024 Lok Sabha result showed the race can tighten fast.
Two of the SP’s 2022 partners have crossed over. The RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary is now a Union minister, and the SBSP’s Om Prakash Rajbhar is a minister in the Adityanath government.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election the SP won 37 of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 seats and the BJP 33. The Congress, fighting alongside the SP, won six, the RLD two, and Apna Dal (Soneylal) and Chandrashekhar Azad’s Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) one each. The two alliances finished almost level on votes: 43.69% for the NDA and 43.52% for the INDIA bloc.
So what does it take to win in 2027?
Holding a large, stable coalition of castes and communities, because the margins between the two blocs have narrowed.
In 2022 the BJP’s alliance led by about seven points across the state. Two years later, in a national election, that lead had all but gone. Assembly and Lok Sabha votes do not move in step, but both main camps are now building around the same goal: adding small caste-based parties and drawing in the voters the BSP is losing.
For the BJP, that means keeping Apna Dal (Soneylal), NISHAD, the SBSP and the RLD on side. For the SP, it means turning its PDA platform (backward castes, Dalits and minorities) into seats outside its strongholds, and settling seat-sharing with the Congress.
For every minister, seat and 2022 margin, see our Uttar Pradesh 2027 election guide.
The documents
- Party-wise result, Uttar Pradesh, General Election to Lok Sabha 2024Election Commission of India, 4 June 2024