Rajnath files papers, gets a rival in Poonam Sinha

The dilemma of the opposition parties to get a Lok Sabha candidate against Union Minister Rajnath Singh in the Lucknow constituency ended finally with Poonam Sinha, former actress and wife of Bollywood veteran Shatrughan Sinha, flying into Lucknow to join the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday. Shortly afterwards, she was named the party’s candidate against Rajnath. It was only a few days earlier that her husband, who has been a BJP MP several times, had joined Congress.

There was near panic among opposition ranks as the last date of filing nomination in Lucknow is April 18 and polling is scheduled on May 6, the fifth round of the multistage elections.

The seat has been allotted to the SP as part of the alliance between the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress too had earlier decided not to put up a candidate from here.

Earlier in the day, Rajnath Singh had filed his nomination papers as the BJP candidate. There had been intense speculation over a common candidate in Lucknow and the name of Jitin Prasad of the Congress had been floated a few weeks ago but it did not materialise. Rajnath Singh, the sitting MP, had been announced by the BJP as its candidate in the first list itself several weeks ago.

The name of Poonam Sinha had been making the rounds for the last few days, especially after Shatrughan himself had quit the BJP to join the Congress on April 6. It had been argued that being a woman candidate, being married to a Kayastha and being a familiar face in the social circles could go in her favour. In all likelihood, Shatrughan himself would be coming to Lucknow to campaign for her and his appeal as an actor, politician and orator could also help her candidature. Though the support of the Congress was expected for her, interestingly, the party yesterday announced the name of Acharya Pramod Krishnam, a spiritual guru, as its Lucknow candidate.

The Lucknow seat has been with the BJP since 1991 when former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had won it. He was re-elected from here till 2009. BJP’s Lalji Tandon won from here in 2009, followed by Rajnath Singh in 2014.

In 2009, Rajnath Singh had won from Ghaziabad. In the 2014 election, he had defeated Rita Bahuguna Joshi of the Congress by a margin of nearly 2.75 lakh votes while the BSP nominee Nakul Dube stood third, followed by Abhishek Mishra of the SP. Rita Bahuguna Joshi is now in the BJP and is a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government. She has also been fielded from Allahabad as the party candidate in this election.

Rajnath Singh filed his nomination papers after going round the city in a colourful procession, accompanied by Deputy Chief Ministers Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Maurya, state BJP president Mahendra Pandey and former Union Minister Kalraj Mishra.

Poonam Sinha, a Sindhi by birth, has never had any connection with Lucknow. She also does not have a political background unlike her husband who was with the BJP for more than two decades and has also been a Union minister.

On the other hand Lucknow has seen several film personalities as candidates in past elections, but none of them has been successful. Actor Javed Jaffrey contested as the Aam Admi Party (AAP) candidate in 2014. The SP has had a particular affinity for film personalities as candidates and had initially fielded actor Sanjay Dutt from Lucknow in 2009. But as the Supreme Court refused to suspend his conviction, rendering him ineligible to contest, the party then named actress Nafisa Ali as its candidate. In 2004 the party had fielded filmmaker Muzaffar Ali, and actor Raj Babbar in 1999. Another high-profile candidate has been senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who contested as an Independent candidate in 2004.

Lucknow has about 19 lakh voters and is a largely urbanised constituency. Being the state capital, it has a large number of government employees living here, besides lakhs of employees in the private sector. The voting pattern is not generally seen to be influenced by caste or communal factors, and most MPs elected from here enjoyed support among the minority community also.