Lalji Tandon defeats Rita Bahuguna Joshi in Lucknow

BJP candidate Lalji Tandon today won the prestigious Lucknow parliamentary seat by defeating his nearest rival Rita Bahuguna Joshi of Congress by a margin of over 40,000 votes.

While Tandon secured over 2.04 lakh votes, Joshi polled 1.63 lakh votes, the district election office department officials said.

BSP nominee Akhilesh Das Gupta was placed at the third spot with 1.33 lakh votes, whereas SP nominee and former Miss India Nafisa Ali got only 61,457 votes.

In Lucknow, the prestige of the BJP was at stake as the party stalwart and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee never lost any election from here since 1991.

Last time Vajpayee won this seat by a huge margin of 2.18 lakh votes which was 56 per cent of the total votes polled.

This time after Vajapyee opted out of electoral politics, there was a mad scramble among political parties and candidates to claim his legacy.

As many as 41 candidates including 25 independents were in the fray from the seat.

While BJP had fielded its senior leader and sitting MLA Lalji Tandon, the BSP gave a chance to Congress turncoat Akhilesh Das Gupta.

The SP, which initially decided to field actor Sanjay Dutt from here, later roped in Nafisa Ali, after he was denied permission to contest election by the Supreme Court.

The Congress on the other hand at the last moment decided to field UP Congress Committee president Rita Bahuguna Joshi, the daughter of former Chief Minister H N Bahuguna.