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Rajnath’s 3rd, BJP’s 9th victory in a row in Lucknow
While Singh secured 6,12,709 votes, his nearest rival and Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Ravidas Mehrotra got 4,77,550 votes
Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday secured his third and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) ninth consecutive victory in the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat. However, his victory margin this time saw a steep fall and was the lowest in the three elections he fought since 2014.
While Singh secured 6,12,709 votes, his nearest rival and Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Ravidas Mehrotra got 4,77,550 votes. BSP’s Sarvar Malik got 30,192 votes. Also, 7350 people opted for NOTA. A total of 11,37,726 votes were polled in Lucknow. Rajnath’s victory margin stood at 1,35,159.
In 2014, Singh’s victory margin stood at 2,72,749 votes as he got 5,61,106 against the Congress’ Rita Bahuguna Joshi (2,88,357 votes). In 2019, Singh pulled off a decisive victory with 6,33,026 votes against SP’s Poonam Sinha, the wife of actor Shatrughan Sinha, who got 2,85,724 votes. Acharya Pramod Krishnam of the Congress (INC) received 1,80,011 votes then.
However, Singh’s 2024 opponent gave him a tough fight. While in the past two elections, the runners-up secured less than 3 lakh votes, Ravidas, a sitting MLA from the SP, won over 4 lakh votes and significantly brought down Singh’s victory margin.
Singh also led in postal ballots. According to data, the Lucknow MP got 2,112, Mehrotra 1,247 and BSP’s Sarwar Malik 210 votes through postal ballots. Out of the total 4,467 postal ballots counted, 34 voters had opted for NOTA and 834 votes were declared invalid after checking.
The Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency has been a BJP stronghold since 1991. Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee contested from here eight times. After initial setbacks (third position in the 1955 bypoll and second in the 1957 and 1962 elections), Vajpayee secured victories in 1991, 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2004.
