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2024 Lok Sabha elections: Spanning 166 km, vast Mohanlalganj the “ring” around Lucknow’s “pearl”
Touching five districts, besides Lucknow, the extensive constituency has a mix of urban and rural voters and the issues range from agrarian and welfare-oriented ones in the villages to civic concerns in the city areas
Mohanlalganj (reserved) is a complex parliamentary constituency, which touches around five districts, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Barabanki, Hardoi and Sitapur, besides having Lucknow city at the centre. It stretches for nearly 166 kilometres.
Like its geography, the political battle for Mohanlalganj is equally multi-cornered. The three main candidates are the sitting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and Union minister of state for housing and urban affairs Kaushal Kishore, who is seeking a third term, the INDIA bloc candidate of the Samajwadi Party (SP) RK Chaudhary and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) nominee Rajesh Kumar.
They all are busy holding nukkad sabhas (street corner meetings) and village meetings to influence Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), as well as visiting newly developed residential colonies, mostly dominated by a population that has migrated from different parts of the state.
A mix of urban and rural assembly constituencies, the Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha seat comprises Lucknow district’s rural assembly segments of Mohanlalganj and Malihabad and two urban and semi-urban segments of Sarojini Nagar and Bakshi Ka Talab (BKT), as well as Sitapur’s Sidhauli assembly segment. It is quite different from the VVIP Lucknow Lok Sabha seat, which comprises five assembly segments of Lucknow city with predominantly urban voters.
“Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha is just like a ring around the pearl, Lucknow Lok Sabha seat. One has to travel nearly 166 kilometres starting from one point in Malihabad to reach Sidhauli while travelling across Sarojini Nagar, Mohanlalganj and Bakshi Ka Talab assembly segments,” said Kaushal Kishore, addressing a public meeting at a recently developed residential colony near Scorpio Club on Kursi Road, which comes under the BKT assembly segment.
“Mohanlalganj’s geography ranges from the narrow dusty lanes of villages to newly developed residential colonies that thrive around the state capital,” Kaushal Kishore said.
“This reserved seat has a diversified range of voters, including the rural residents of Mohanlalganj, Malihabad and Sidhauli assembly segments. Two of its assembly segments include a new migrated population, which settled down around the city in the past two decades,” he said.
“Unlike the Lucknow seat, Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha candidates have to travel a long distance from interior villages of Mohanlalganj, Malihabad and Sidhauli assembly segments to newly developed residential colonies of Ashiana, Rajni Khand, Eldeco Udyan II, South City, Vrindavan, Sushant Golf City and Omaxe Residency behind police headquarters building and other residential colonies that have flourished on five different highways connecting the state capital to administrative headquarters of adjoining districts like Sitapur, Barabanki, Rae Bareli, Unnao as well as Hardoi,” he explained.
“In this predominantly rural constituency reserved for the scheduled castes, villagers are nowadays busy harvesting the wheat crop. It is in these fields that villagers often have a political discourse, while harvesting the crop, on topics ranging from PM Narendra Modi’s beneficiary schemes for the rural poor to stray cattle and other issues,” local political expert Dinesh Kumar said.
“Construction of roads, sewers, water supply and drainage are issues for residents of newly developed residential colonies on highways linking adjoining districts of its two urban assembly segments,” he said.
