Except Punjab, BJP holds good in northern states

The BJP, which ruins an alliance government with the Akali Dal in Punjab since 2007, managed to win the Gurdaspur (actor Vinod Khanna won by over 1.36 lakh votes) and Hoshiarpur (Vijay Sampla) seats.

The Aam Aadmi Party, which could not open its account anywhere else, bagged four Lok Sabha seats in Punjab. Margins of winning AAP candidates ranged from 20,000 to a comprehensive over 2.11 lakh.

The AAP march in Punjab affected the political fortunes of the Akali Dal and the BJP. While the Akali Dal got over 26 percent of vote share, the AAP was a close second at nearly 24 percent.

In Himachal, the BJP got all four seats.

Its candidate Ram Swaroop Sharma caused the biggest upset at Mandi, defeating Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's wife Pratibha Singh.

Other prominent BJP winners included veteran leader Shanta Kumar and youth BJP president Anurag Thakur.

While the Congress was decimated completely in Delhi, Uttarakhand, Himachal and Chandigarh, the party managed to win two seats in Punjab and one in Haryana.

Two seats in Haryana went to the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).

In 2009, the Congress won nine of Harayana's 10 seats, eight of 13 in Punjab, two out of four in Himachal Pradesh, all seven in Delhi and