Uttar Pradesh election results 2019: End of road for Babbar as clamour grows for his ouster?

AGRA: Bollywood actor and Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Raj Babbar lost to BJP’s Raj Kumar Chahar from

Fatehpur Sikri

, close to his hometown Agra. His defeat comes two years after Congress’s rout in the assembly elections in the state under his leadership.


Under Babbar’s leadership, the party had fared badly not only in the assembly polls but also in municipal elections, as well as Gorakhpur and Phoolpur by-polls.

Speculations are rife that he would resign from his post, as the state unit’s performance under his tenure has been disappointing. His defeat is a severe blow to his political career.

Congress workers, however, have been critical of his performance and accuse him of not knowing much about the organizational works. Party workers said that a “film personality” is good for “one time use” as they cannot retain momentum for long.

They also accuse him of being inaccessible to both with public and party workers.

A three-time member of the

Lok Sabha

and a two-term member of the Upper House, Babbar was initially nominated from Moradabad, but the party later changed his seat to Fatehpur Sikri, on his demand.

During campaigning, Babbar was banking on what he claimed to “local connection” to win the election. Born and educated in Agra, Babbar used to seek votes during his 2019 campaign by projecting his Bollywood success as that of a “lad from Fatehpur Sikri”.

Raj Babbar had contested from Fatehpur Sikri in 2009, but lost to BSP’s Seema Upadhyay in a close contest by a margin of 9,936 votes.

However, he got re-elected to the Lok Sabha from Firozabad in the by-elections held the same year by defeating Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav. He is currently a Rajya Sabha member and state president of UPCC.

In 2014, Congress did not field a candidate from Fatehpur Sikri LS seat which was won by BJP’s Babulal Chaudhary, who secured 44.06% of the total votes polled. Babbar was then fielded from Ghaziabad but lost by a huge margin to BJP’s Gen VK Singh.

Babbar was a two-time MP from Samajwadi Party – 1999 and 2004 – from the Agra Lok Sabha seat. He was suspended from Samajwadi Party in 2006. Later, he joined Congress in 2008 and was elected to his third term in Lok Sabha in 2009 by defeating Dimple Yadav.

He also served two terms in Rajya Sabha – first from 1994 to 1999 – while his second term in RS began from March 2015.