Rajnath votes in Lucknow, says voters will decide

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday cast his vote here in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections and appealed voters to vote with great enthusiasm.

The Home Minister, who is again the Lucknow BJP candidate cast his vote at polling booth 333 in Scholars' Home School, along side his wife Savitri and son Pankaj.

Speaking to reporters immediately after, Singh said: "I leave everything on the voters here." He is pitted against SP-BSP star candidate Poonam Sinha, wife of former BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, and Congress candidate Acharya Pramod Krishnam

"Today is the polling for 51 Lok Sabha seats including Lucknow... I urge all the voters to cast their valuable votes with great enthusiasm and vote in large numbers," Singh tweeted earlier.

Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency is one of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. Polling here began at 7 a.m. along with 13 other Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.

While Poonam Sinha is making her political debut, self-styled spiritual guru Krishnam had unsuccessfully contested Sambhal in 2014 and got just 1.52 per cent of the votes.

Singh, who is a former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister (2000-2002), has a huge chance of winning the seat considered a BJP stronghold, once held by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

In 2014, Rajnath Singh had trounced Congress' Rita Bahuguna Joshi by a margin of 2.72 lakh votes, the highest margin in electoral history of the city.

The BJP has held the seat since 1991. Vajpayee, when he became the Prime Minister, won the seat by a margin of 2.16 lakh votes in 1998.

--IANS

rak/in