Comment: Land of Nawabs goes to vote

BJP stronghold likely to face tough competition from Samajwadi Pary and AAP.

NEW DELHI:

As soon as you land in this place, your eyes are refreshed by view of some majestic monuments, your ears are charmed by the way people respect you here and your nose gets mesmerised by the smell of the city’s delicacies. Culturally speaking - The land of Nawabs, the epitome of Ganga-Jamuna tehzeeb and politically speaking - The fortress of Bhartiya Janta Party, Lucknow.

Situated in Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow plays an important role in the elections. UP sends the maximum number of members to Lokh Sabha. Like they put it ‘if you can win in UP you can win the nation’ which has somewhat proven to be true with BJP veteran Atal Bihari Vajpayee becoming the premier after being elected from Lucknow.

The constituency has always been BJP’s stronghold with Vajpayee winning from Lucknow for 18 consecutive years. Since Vajpaee retired in 2009 another BJP veteran leader Lal Ji Tandon has carried forward the legacy.  It’s been 23 years, since BJP have predominantly occupied this seat.

And now that Lal Ji Tandon has stepped down, BJP has fielded yet another party veteran and a former UP chief minister Raj Nath Singh from Lucknow, making sure that BJP not only wins the seat but the party also manages to maintain its stronghold.



However, this time round the BJP is in a tough fight against the fast growing Aam Aadmi Party which has stretched their wings in Lucknow too. The party has fielded a rather non-political but a Muslim candidate, the renowned actor Jaaved Jaaferi.

Jaaferi is the lone Muslim candidate from Lucknow to be nominated by any major party barring another Muslim candidate from Trinamool Congress.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party has fielded the current MLA from Lucknow North, Abhishek Mishra, a 37-year old ex-IIM Ahmedabad faculty member with PhD from Cambridge University. However, Mishra was a last-minute surprise replacement for senior leader Dr Ashok Bajpai, who was almost a declared candidate from Lucknow.

As for Congress, they have given ticket to former state Congress chief and current MLA from Lucknow Cantonment, Rita Bahugna Joshi. She had won the state assembly elections defeating BJP veteran from the same constituency, and comes with a legacy as her Hemvati Nandan Bahugna was the former chief minister of UP.

Bahujan Samajwadi Party has fielded a candidate from nearby district, Mahona MLA Nakul Dubey from Lucknow.

This would be an interesting battle; though many political pundits are easily projecting Rajnath Singh’s victory, but the question remains as to whether BJP will get the same vote-share which it has been getting till now.

In 2012, BJP four out of five seats from Lucknow in the UP state assembly elections.

This came as a surprise to BJP and put questions over Tandon’s popularity. This is probably the reason why the party has chosen Raj Nath Singh to represent them in UP.

Well, UP is still one of those places in the country where caste vote plays an important role and so it also has a very vivid effect in Lucknow too. Muslims have had clear divisions with no solid representation in the form of a candidate, can this be just the perfect moment for AAP to bag votes?

Uzair Hasan Rizvi is a journalism student at AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2014.