Lucknow LS seat set for multi-coloured contest

The prestigious Lucknow Lok Sabha seat, which is in limelight with the entry of BJP national president Rajnath Singh in the fray, is set to witness a tricky contest.

Rajnath, who is facing a four-cornered fight, has two tasks at hand - first to maintain legacy of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpaee and second to ensure victory margin matching his political stature.

Ever since the Ram temple movement, BJP has never lost the Lucknow seat. The people of the city had elected Vajpayee for five-times on the trot between 1991 to 2004.

In 2009, when Atal withdrew on the health ground, his place was taken by one of his trusted lieutenant in Lucknow Lalji Tandon, who defeated his nearest rival Rita Bahuguna Joshi by a small margin of merely 37,000 votes.

This time Rajnath, a sitting MP from Ghaziabad, has replaced Tandon.

Sitting MLA and former state Congress president Rita Bahguna Joshi is expected to give Rajnath a run for money. SP candidate and UP minister Abhishek Mishra and BSP nominee Nakul Dubey are also expected to put up a good show.

Adding glamour quotient to the contest, Aam Admi Party has fielded Bollywood actor Javed Jaffri, who is politically inexperienced.

The SP, sensing the mood of the people, had changed it earlier declared candidate Ashok Bajpai at the last moment, replacing him with Mishra.

Joshi, who is sitting MLA from Lucknow Cantt, has got the maximum support of around 1.5 lakh natives of Uttarakhand settled in the plains.

However, the equation could change this time with Congress leader Satpal Maharaj switching to BJP and Rajnath's elder daughter-in-law Sushma Singh herself hailing from Uttrakhand.

The equilibrium was disturbed after Congress city president Neeraj Bora left the party in the mid of the election and declared his support for Rajnath.

While Rajnath is expected to sail through on the Modi wave, SP is counting on its performance in the 2012 Assembly elections, when it had bagged three of the five seats.

With about 18 lakh electorates in total, Lucknow has substantial number of Muslim voters. This is the reason all the prominent candidates have met Muslim clerics and sought their support. Even Rajnath met Shia and Sunni clerics and even appealed Muslims to test BJP once.

After Muslims, Brahmin electorates are on number two position and had been with BJP since 1991.