Saturday was a good day for dynastic politics in India, as the younger generation of leaders have made significant inroads, notably so in Uttar Pradesh. Sons and daughters of top leaders won big in their respective constituencies, though there were a couple of losses.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj Singh (pictured above) proved a challenging match for candidates contesting from Noida. The BJP candidate won by a massive margin of more than a lakh votes, defeating the Samajwadi Party’s Sunil Choudhary and Bahujan Samaj Party’s Ravikant Mishra. This was Pankaj Singh and Mishra’s first time contesting an Assembly election.

“We will fulfil all the promises made to voters during our campaign,” the BJP leader said. “The BJP will work honestly to fulfil promises made in our sankalp patra [manifesto] for the UP polls.”

Another young BJP leader, bigwig Brij Bhushan Singh’s son Pratik Bhushan Singh won the Gonda seat, though by a smaller margin than Pankaj Singh. BSP’s Mohammed Jaleel Khan came in second there, with SP’s Suraj Singh trailing in the third spot in the constituency.

Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan’s son Abdullah Azam Khan, too, secured a win in his Suar constituency. BJP’s Laxmi Saini and BSP candidate Nawab Kazim Ali Khan proved no match for the young SP leader, who won by a margin of more than a lakh. Azam Khan also won from his Rampur seat.

Marking another win for the younger generation of leaders, Congress candidate Aditi Singh won the Raebareli seat, defeating BJP first-timer Anita Srivastava. Aditi Singh’s father Akhilesh Singh had held the seat since 1993. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is the Member of Parliament for Raebareli, which has been a party stronghold for decades.

Among the losses were BSP senior leader Mukhtar Ansari’s son Abbas Ansari defeat in Ghosi and former Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav’s poor performance in Lucknow Cantonment. Abbas Ansari lost to BJP’s Fagu Chauhan but fared better than SP’s Sudhakar. Aparna Yadav was pitted against BJP’s Rita Bhaguna Joshi and BSP’s Yogesh Dixit, but Joshi bagged a far higher number of votes in comparison.