Comprising mainly of urban areas of the State Capital, lucknow East constituency will go to polls in the third phase of Assembly elections on Sunday. The cast equations in this constituency, combined with aspirations of a strong trader community and highly urban class electors, have favoured Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in as many as last seven Assembly elections.
Unwilling to endorse the fact in the changing weather of February, new-comers like SP-Congress alliance candidate Anurag Singh Bhaudauria, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Saroj Kumar Shukla and Rohit Agarwal of the Rashtriya lok Dal will take on BJP candidate and sitting MlA Ashutosh ‘Gopal’ Tandon in this BJP bastion, where the saffron party has been winning since 1991.
“This time election is going to be quite tough for the BJP candidate. We have not seen the sitting MlA for long,” said a sweetmeat shop-owner in Munshipulia area.
“Tandon’s election is more about the work done by his father lalji Tandon’s and his political position. He will get benefit of his father’s position in the party,” said a resident of Indira Nagar.
The SP has given a strong competition to the BJP in the last elections, each time improving its vote percentage. Interestingly, in 2002 and 2007 Assembly elections, the BJP managed to score a win with a margin of only 339 and 631 votes respectively.
Moreover, the SP has stood only second to the BJP in all the elections. It was the only seat in the State Capital that the BJP retained in 2012 elections after defeating Juhi Singh of SP and Ramesh Srivastava of Indian National Congress.
The constituency with majority of upper class urban voters, however, gives little scope to other contestants. And with prominent Kshatriya and Brahmin population, the BJP is comfortable. The presence of a large number of business establishments, including the MNCs, in the constituency may further fortify BJP in the elections. In addition, the constituency has equal share of Muslim and Dalit electors, along with some pockets of Valmiki, Sonkar and backward classes population.
The BSP and the SP-Congress commonly count them as their voter base.
Further, lucknow East constituency has majority of urban population in areas that include Gomti Nagar, Rabindrapalli, Indira Nagar, New Hyderabad, Paper Mill colony, Mahanagar, Badshahnagar, Ismailganj, Kamta, Nishatganj and Kalyanpur.
The constituency, which prides itself with sending former Chief Minister Chandra Bhanu Gupta to the Vidhan Sabha, had elected many stalwarts like Swaroop Kumari Bakshi and Kalraj Mishra.
The BJP has swept in as many as seven elections while the INC has kept its position intact with six wins. Other smaller parties also managed to win from this constituency one time each.