226. Varanasi South

Bharatiya Janata Party held the seat; the winning margin narrowed from 38.9% to 25.2%.

• Won on a lower shareIts own vote share fell 15.4% — it held because the rest of the vote was more divided.
• New challengerSamajwadi Party (SP) finished second with 27.4% — it did not contest here in 1996.
• Vote fragmentedThe top two took only 80.1% between them, down from 97.2% — the field split more ways.

Written from the constituency figures by a fixed set of rules — no language model.