The 2024 Indian general election was held in Uttar Pradesh in seven phases from 19 April to 1 June to elect 80 members of the 18th Lok Sabha, with the results declared on 4 June. Bypolls for Dadraul, Lucknow East, Gainsari, and Duddhi assembly constituencies were held alongside this election.
Uttar Pradesh, along with Bihar and West Bengal, were the only states where the 2024 Indian general election was held in all seven phases.
All opinion polls and exit polls forecasted a landslide win for the BJP, but the INDIA alliance of SP and INC instead won 43 seats and secured 43.52% of the popular vote. Meanwhile the NDA won 36 seats and secured 43.69% of the popular vote.
The UPPSC police recruitment exam was held on 17 and 18 February. Some candidates and student organisations alleged that other candidates had the question paper 8âÂÂ12 hours prior to the exam, and that it was available at a price between â¹50,000 (US$603) and â¹200,000 (US$2,413). On 19 February, the UP Police Recruitment Board chairperson Renuka Mishra said that there was no evidence to prove that there was a paper leak before the exam, while simultaneously constituting an internal committee to investigate the allegations. On 23 February, a large number of students protested in Lucknow, questioning the authenticity of the exam and demanding cancellation & re-examination. Another group protested at the UPPSC headquarters at Prayagraj the same day. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi and Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav tweeted in support of the students' protest, calling for a CBI probe into the incident. Protesting students ran the hashtag #ReExam_RO_ARO on social media. On 24 February, chief minister Yogi Adityanath announced that the exam had been cancelled and a re-exam would be conducted within the next six months.
In this election, Samajwadi Party won the highest number of seats out of a total 80 seats of Lok Sabha in Uttar Pradesh. The party under Akhilesh Yadav relied upon Other Backward Castes and the PDA in order to make inroads amongst the non-Yadav OBC communities, it fielded large number of candidates from Kurmi caste as well as from the Maurya-Kushwaha community. It also relied upon Dalit communities such as Pasis. Consequently, in the final result, OBC MPs outnumbered the Forward Caste MPs. Senior Kurmi leaders like Naresh Uttam Patel, Ram Prasad Chaudhary and Lalji Verma were victorious. The controversial MP Ajay Mishra Teni was defeated by Utkarsh Verma. In Jaunpur Lok Sabha constituency, SP's Babu Singh Kushwaha defeated BJP's Kripa Shankar Singh despite the backing of local strongman from Thakur community Dhananjay Singh. Despite this however, the National Democratic Alliance had a slightly greater vote share than the INDIA block with the Bharatiya Janata Party winning a plurality.