Seven hours into the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha polls, one thing is clear, the BJP's Uttar Pradesh dominance faced a tough challenge from the INDIA bloc.

At noon, the INDIA alliance of Samajwadi Party and Congress was leading on 43 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats, seven more than the NDA tally of 36.

Among the biggest talking points in this election was the construction of the grand Ram temple in Ayodhya, a BJP poll promise since the 1980s, which BJP supporters claimed would be the decisive factor in the Lok Sabha election results.

But trends show that Ayodhya failed to assert itself as the key factor even in Faizabad, the constituency it is part of.

According to Election Commission data, the Samajwadi Party's Awadesh Prasad is leading by over 20,000 votes against BJP's Lallu Singh. BJP is also leading in neighbouring two of the seven constituencies bordering Faizabad, Gonda and Kaiserganj. Out of the five others, Congress leads in two—Amethi and Barabanki and SP in three, Sultanpur, Ambednagar and Basti.

Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi were last seen campaigning together in the run-up to the 2017 Uttar Pradesh polls, but when the results came, the BJP had a whopping 302 seats and the Congress-SP alliance managed just 47. Seven years later, the two leaders, both more mature politically, were seen together again when they came together under the INDIA alliance for the big Lok Sabha fight. If the current trends hold, the two may have changed the picture this time. The INDIA bloc is currently leading on 42 of the state's 80 seats, five more than the NDA in Uttar Pradesh.