Samajwadi Party candidate and Akhilesh Yadav’s loyalist and Minister for Science and Technology Abhishek Mishra is seeking re-election from lucknow North constituency.
His rival BJP candidate Neeraj Bora, who had contested on Congress ticket earlier, jumped on to the BJP camp this time around. BJP’s firebrand leader Uma Bharti has already campaigned for him.
In this constituency which mixed population of Muslims and Hindus the equation has changed this year as both the communities are not happy with SP Minister Abhishek as he failed to visit Faizullah area that witnessed over 30 dengue deaths. However, people are not actively supporting BJP due to demonetization. As a result BSP’s Ajay Srivastava may stand to gain.
Although a first timer, he has been campaigning soon after he was given a ticket, much before the other parties started ticket distribution.
After the delimitation of Mahona constituency in 2012, lucknow North constituency came into existence.
In 2012 Abhishek contested elections for the first time after resigning from the post of Professor at IIM-Ahmedabad and he managed to get 47,580 votes.
After winning the election, Abhishek got big responsibilities in Akhilesh’s council of Ministers but he kept his focus on the constituency too and carried out many development works like construction of bridges, flyovers and improving the heritage zone.
On the other hand Neeraj has a political legacy of his father Dr DP Bora. Even in 2012 polls, he lost to Abhishek with a wafer thin margin.