Lucknow: In a major upset in the Faizabad parliamentary constituency, where the temple town of Ayodhya is situated, Samajwadi Party candidate Awadhesh Prasad defeated sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh by a margin of 54,567 votes.

According to the Election Commission data, Prasad polled 5,54,289 votes while Lallu Singh got 4,99,722. The BSP's Sachidanand Pandey managed to secure 46,407 votes.

In all, 13 candidates were in the fray in Faizabad.

The latest election trends in Ayodhya assume significance as the Ram temple of Ayodhya has been the fulcrum of BJP's politics in the 1990s, which had catapulted it significantly at the national level.

During campaigning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Barabanki and Hamirpur on May 17 had claimed that the Congress and the Samajwadi Party would run a bulldozer over the Ram temple if elected to power, and asked them to take lessons from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on where bulldozers should be used instead.

On January 22, an idol of the new Ram Lalla was consecrated at the Ayodhya temple, in a landmark event led by the prime minister who also gave a clarion call to go beyond the grand mandir's construction to build the foundation of a "strong, capable and divine" India of the next 1,000 years. PTI