Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday said that his party showed that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s seat count can be decreased. His reaction came a day after the results of five Assembly elections, including Uttar Pradesh, were announced.

The BJP won the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election by a huge margin. It bagged 255 seats in the 403-member Assembly. In 2017, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance had won 325 seats in the state polls.

The Samajwadi Party came second with 111 seats and received a vote share of 32.1%, its highest in the last ten years. In the 2017 elections, the party had secured 47 seats.

Yadav won from Karhal constituency, securing 60.12% of the total votes cast there.

The Rashtriya Lok Dal, an ally of the Samajwadi Party in western Uttar Pradesh, won eight seats. The party emerged as the fourth largest in the state with a vote share of 2.85%.

On Friday, Yadav claimed that the decline of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh would continue.

“More than half of falsehoods have been wiped out, the rest will follow,” the Samajwadi Party chief said. “Our struggle for public welfare will continue”.

Yadav also thanked voters of the state for increasing Samajwadi Party’s seat count and vote-share percentage.

Exit polls and ground reports had earlier suggested that Yadav and his Samajwadi Party-led alliance would give the BJP a tough fight.