Barring a few exceptions, UP proved harsh for many parties' chiefs in Lok Sabha elections

The sole seat that the Congress was able to retain was that of its former president Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli.

Amongst the high-profile party chiefs who got a drubbing included Rashtriya Lok Dal president Ajit Singh, who lost to BJP's Sanjeev Balyan in Muzaffarnagar. Balyan has since been inducted in Union ministry.

Ajit Singh's son Jayant Chaudhary too was humbled in Baghpat by BJP's Satya Pal Singh.

Another loser among various parties' chiefs included Bahujan Samaj Party's state unit president RS Kushwaha, who contested as an SP-BSP-RLD coalition candidate from Salempur, but lost to Ravinder of the BJP by 1,12,477 votes.

BSP supreme had not contested the Lok Sabha elections this time.

The sole exception to the non-BJP, non-NDA party chiefs winning the 2019 polls was Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, who managed to win from Azamgarh with a margin of 2,59,874 votes.

Besides, the SP chief, BJP's state unit president Mahendra Nath Pandey was among the rare winners among various party's chiefs. He won for the second time from Chandauli parliamentary constituency.

Yet another exception was Anupriya Singh Patel, the chief of BJP ally Apna Dal (Soneylal), who won from Mirjapur.