LUCKNOW, January 15: The prestigious Lok Sabha constituency, which returned Nehru's sister Vijay Laxmi Pandit in the first elections in 1952, is back in focus with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) deciding to field its Prime Ministerial candidate Atal Behari Vajpayee from Lucknow for his third consecutive term in the coming battle of ballots.On the threshold of a hat-trick, BJP stalwart's electoral association with this constituency dates back to 1954 when the young Vajpayee entered into his maiden electoral fray in a by-election which was necessitated by Vijay Laxmi Pandit's resignation to take up the assignment of India's High Commissioner to Great Britain.
Vajpayee who lost his first electoral fight to the Congress nominee Swaraj Mati Nehru, a close relative of Pandit Nehru, also contested the 1957 and 62 Lok Sabha elections from Lucknow unsuccessfully and finished runner up, but secured above 33 per cent of the votes polled against Congress nominees P B Banerjee and BK Dhaon respectively.
Currently
on a trail to equal the rare distinction of Sheila Kaul of Congress in representing this prestigious constituency thrice (in 1971, '80 and '84), Vajpayee had registered his maiden victory from here riding on the ram wave in 1991 by defeating Ranjit Singh (Cong) by a margin of over ninety thousand votes.
He then retained the seat in 1996 routing in a straight contest the Samajwadi Party nominee and matinee idol Raj Babbar by a margin of over 1.18 lakh votes. Vajpayee polled 3.84 lakh votes.
The Congress, runners up in the last election now has a star campaigner in Sonia Gandhi and the BSP has emerged as a powerful force in the '90s, but both have yet to decide their candidates and thus it is difficult to guess who would emerge as the main rival to Vajpayee.
Spread over five Vidhan Sabha segments (all held by BJP), four of them urban and the fifth one semirural, the Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency with its current electorate of over 18 lakhs (eight lakh women), has seen the fluctuating electoral fortunes
of various political outfits in the state.
The erstwhile stronghold of the Congress, this constituency went out of that party's control in 1967 when its nominee V R Mohan lost to an Independent, Retd. Justice A N Mulla.
While Shiela Kaul wrested it back for Congress in 1971, she lost to Bharatiya Lok Dal nominee (Janata Party) H N Bahuguna in post emergency Lok Sabha election in 1977.
In 1980, the comeback year for the Congress, its nominee Shiela Kaul again wrested this prestigious seat and retained it in the 1984 elections held after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
In the 1989 elections, which saw Janata Dal come to power both at the Centre and in the State, Lucknow went the Janata Dal way and returned its nominee Mandhata Singh, while the last two Lok Sabha elections returned the BJP nominee Vajpayee.
With Atal Behari Vajpayee again in the fray and other parties yet to open their cards, it is anybody's guess as to how the electorate of this constituency react to Bhartiya Janata Party's
slogan of "Stable government, able Prime Minister".
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
