Balha (SC)

Overview & 2022 Context

Balha, Legislative Assembly seat number 282 in Bahraich district, produced a comfortable but contested win in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls. SAROJ SONKAR of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finished first with 100,483 votes (46.76%), defeating AKSHAYBAR NATH KANAUJIYA (SP), who polled 83,910 (39.05%). The victory margin was 16,573 votes. Of 362,718 electors, 214,876 votes were polled and turnout stood at 59.24%.

The 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election was a bipolar contest between the BJP-led NDA and the Samajwadi Party–led front. Campaign discourse centred on law-and-order and welfare delivery versus unemployment, inflation, farm distress and the stray-cattle problem, as widely reported during the polls; the BJP retained power while the SP improved its seat tally as the principal opposition. In this Assembly Constituency, the local verdict hinged on candidate networks and booth-level conversion as much as alliance symbols. Leading contenders by votes included: SAROJ SONKAR (BJP, 100,483 / 46.76%); AKSHAYBAR NATH KANAUJIYA (SP, 83,910 / 39.05%); RAMCHANDRA (BSP, 15,578 / 7.25%); KANTI (AAAP, 2,650 / 1.23%).

Campaign noise statewide does not erase the arithmetic of this Legislative Assembly segment: the gap between SAROJ SONKAR and AKSHAYBAR NATH KANAUJIYA is the binding fact for seat 282, and every other claim about caste blocs or welfare messaging has to be tested against that published margin of 16,573 votes.

Geographical & Administrative Profile

Bahraich belongs to eastern Uttar Pradesh (Purvanchal), a densely settled agrarian belt. Headquartered at Bahraich, the district’s politics often turn on remittances, farm labour, flood/embankment stress where rivers matter, and caste coalitions. Administratively, Balha is Legislative Assembly segment number 282 under Bahraich (headquarters: Bahraich). Like neighbouring segments, it mixes rural habitations and market nodes where roads, schools, health access and welfare delivery travel with voters as strongly as statewide narratives.

Geography here is not ornamental for election reading. Flood plains, market roads and block headquarters shape who can mobilise, who migrates for work, and which booth clusters decide close Assembly Constituency contests. Balha sits inside that Bahraich administrative map even when national television talks only of alliances.

History & Past Election Trends

On the same constituency lineage, recent Legislative Assembly outcomes were — 2017: AKSHAYVARALAL (BJP) by 46,616 votes; 2012: SAVITRI BAI FULE (BJP) by 19,928 votes.

Against that backdrop, the 2022 win for SAROJ SONKAR (BJP) in Legislative Assembly number 282 should be read as continuity where the same camp had dominated, or as another swing where the lineage had flipped before — never by treating the serial number alone as eternal identity.

Statistics & Gender-wise Polling Analysis

Electors: 362,718. Votes polled: 214,876. Turnout: 59.24%. Winner SAROJ SONKAR (BJP): 100,483 (46.76%); runner-up AKSHAYBAR NATH KANAUJIYA (SP): 83,910 (39.05%); margin: 16,573 — a comfortable but contested win relative to total votes polled in this Assembly Constituency.

Men slightly outnumbered women among recorded voters: male 108,939 (50.84%), female 105,338 (49.16%).

Turnout 59.24% with 214,876 votes from 362,718 electors remains the participation baseline for comparing this seat with neighbouring Legislative Assembly segments in Bahraich.

Issues That Drove Voting Behavior

Statewide themes included suraksha/law-and-order messaging, labharthi welfare schemes, Hindutva-plus mobilisation, and opposition focus on jobs, price rise, farm incomes and stray cattle. In Bahraich, voters also weighed migration remittances, farm labour, flood embankments, caste coalitions. a comfortable but contested win for SAROJ SONKAR (BJP) against AKSHAYBAR NATH KANAUJIYA (SP) suggests the winner’s camp converted a broader preference in seat 282.

None of those themes automatically explain every booth. The usable conclusion for Balha is narrower: SAROJ SONKAR (BJP) outpolled AKSHAYBAR NATH KANAUJIYA (SP) by 16,573 votes under 59.24% turnout, and that is the 2022 mandate recorded for Assembly Constituency number 282.

Reading 2022 carefully means separating statewide wave talk from booth-level conversion in Balha. SAROJ SONKAR (BJP) converted 100,483 votes; AKSHAYBAR NATH KANAUJIYA (SP) had 83,910. Turnout 59.24% and margin 16,573 in seat 282 signal organisational reach across polling stations rather than a single-day mood swing alone.

For journalists and researchers, the safer frame is lineage continuity plus the published 2022 table: electors 362,718, votes polled 214,876, and the head-to-head between SAROJ SONKAR and AKSHAYBAR NATH KANAUJIYA. District cues in Bahraich still matter — roads, floods, farm prices, migration and welfare delivery — but they must be weighed against what the EVM count actually recorded in this Assembly Constituency / Legislative Assembly seat.