Mehnagar (SC)

Overview & 2022 Context

Mehnagar, Assembly Constituency number 352 in Azamgarh district, produced a comfortable but contested win in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls. PUJA of Samajwadi Party (SP) finished first with 86,960 votes (39.3%), defeating MANJOO SAROJ (BJP), who polled 72,811 (32.91%). The victory margin was 14,149 votes. Of 404,280 electors, 221,259 votes were polled and turnout stood at 54.73%.

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 Legislative Assembly segment, the local verdict hinged on candidate networks and booth-level conversion as much as alliance symbols. Leading contenders by votes included: PUJA (SP, 86,960 / 39.3%); MANJOO SAROJ (BJP, 72,811 / 32.91%); PANKAJ KUMAR (BSP, 50,173 / 22.68%); KARMVEER AZAD (AIMIM, 4,377 / 1.98%).

Campaign noise statewide does not erase the arithmetic of this Legislative Assembly segment: the gap between PUJA and MANJOO SAROJ is the binding fact for seat 352, and every other claim about caste blocs or welfare messaging has to be tested against that published margin of 14,149 votes.

Geographical & Administrative Profile

Azamgarh belongs to eastern Uttar Pradesh (Purvanchal), a densely settled agrarian belt. Headquartered at Azamgarh, the district’s politics often turn on remittances, farm labour, flood/embankment stress where rivers matter, and caste coalitions. Administratively, Mehnagar is Legislative Assembly number 352 under Azamgarh (headquarters: Azamgarh). 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. Mehnagar sits inside that Azamgarh administrative map even when national television talks only of alliances.

History & Past Election Trends

On the same constituency lineage, recent Legislative Assembly outcomes were — 2012: BRIJ LAL SONKAR (SP) by 10,362 votes; 2007: VIDYA CHAUDHARY (BSP) by 9,541 votes; 2002: VIDYA CHAUDHARY (BSP) by 332 votes; 1996: RAM JUG (CPM) by 4,109 votes.

Against that backdrop, the 2022 win for PUJA (SP) in Assembly Constituency number 352 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: 404,280. Votes polled: 221,259. Turnout: 54.73%. Winner PUJA (SP): 86,960 (39.3%); runner-up MANJOO SAROJ (BJP): 72,811 (32.91%); margin: 14,149 — a comfortable but contested win relative to total votes polled in this Assembly Constituency.

Women slightly outnumbered men among recorded voters: male 102,820 (46.78%), female 116,982 (53.22%).

Turnout 54.73% with 221,259 votes from 404,280 electors remains the participation baseline for comparing this seat with neighbouring Legislative Assembly segments in Azamgarh.

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 Azamgarh, voters also weighed migration remittances, farm labour, flood embankments, caste coalitions. a comfortable but contested win for PUJA (SP) against MANJOO SAROJ (BJP) suggests the winner’s camp converted a broader preference in seat 352.

None of those themes automatically explain every booth. The usable conclusion for Mehnagar is narrower: PUJA (SP) outpolled MANJOO SAROJ (BJP) by 14,149 votes under 54.73% turnout, and that is the 2022 mandate recorded for Assembly Constituency number 352.

Reading 2022 carefully means separating statewide wave talk from booth-level conversion in Mehnagar. PUJA (SP) converted 86,960 votes; MANJOO SAROJ (BJP) had 72,811. Turnout 54.73% and margin 14,149 in seat 352 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 404,280, votes polled 221,259, and the head-to-head between PUJA and MANJOO SAROJ. District cues in Azamgarh 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.