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ISSUES '98
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State:	Uttar Pradesh
Constituency:	Unnao
Total Votes Polled:	489543
Winner: BJP	Devi Bux	167301
Runner Up: BSP	P Vajiurrahman Safavi Alias Vazzi Mia	167301
Margin: 45656 (9.53%)

A Congress stronghold which was broken for the first time in 1977, when Z R Ansari -- who raved and ranted over the Shahbano judgment -- lost it for the Congress. This seat elected Ansari the next two times, in 1980 and 1984. He trailed the JD in 1989, and the BJP in 1991. In 1996, Sheila Dixit was in the fray as the Congress-T candidate and she ended up fifth, just 2,000 votes behind the Congress's 13,477 votes. Devi Bux Singh, the BJP's sitting MP, was returned, when he defeated the BSP's Vajiurrahman Safavi by 46,000 votes.