Defence minister Rajnath Singh and his teams are campaigning in Lucknow round the clock but the Samajwadi Party’s Ravidas Mehrotra is not so visible.

The Samajwadi Party is part of the INDIA bloc. The Bahujan Samaj Party’s Sarvar Malik appears to be dividing a section of voters, which was otherwise with Mehrotra.

Many believe that Lucknow is an example of rajnaitik shishtachar (political courtesy) which Akhilesh Yadav often mentions in his internal party speeches. It means giving a walkover to the big leaders of other political parties to keep the doors of friendship open.

When Mehrotra — the SP MLA from Lucknow Central — was nominated to contest from the state capital, he had started a massive door-to-door campaign, posing a threat to Rajnath. However, his campaign received a major setback when his party colleague Ashutosh Verma created confusion among voters and party cadres last week by filing his nomination and declaring that he was the official party candidate.

A senior SP leader said on condition of anonymity: “Although Verma’s nomination was cancelled later and Mehrotra’s status was restored, it had already destabilised to some extent our official nominee. Then Akhilesh replaced Naresh Uttam with Shyamlal Pal as the party state president on May 6, a day before the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections. This shows the instability of our leadership.”

“While the BJP has based its campaign less on the works of the Narendra Modi government and more on ruthlessly targeting our candidates, we are busy in rajnaitik shishtachar. This election was a golden opportunity for us because the voters were angry with the Modi government but we couldn’t capitalise on it. Let us see what happens in this election, which has turned into a contest between the helpless people and the mighty government,” the SP leader added.

Mehrotra tried to put up a brave face and said: “I have been struggling for the basic needs of the people and my voters are my friends.”

Rajnath said: “There is no contest here. We are telling the people about the 10
excellent years of the Modi government.”

The last three Lok Sabha elections had showed that the Congress had over 1.50 lakh dedicated voters in Lucknow, while the SP and the BSP had about 50,000 fixed voters each.

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was elected from Lucknow for five consecutive terms before retiring from politics. The BJP’s Lalji Tandon won from here in 2009 by claiming that he was a successor of Vajpayee. However, Rajnath replaced Tandon in 2014. Since then he has been elected twice and is now trying for the third term.

It is believed that Rajnath was one of the few people who had “blessed” Akhilesh when he took over as the SP chief from his father Mulayam Singh Yadav on January 1, 2017. Many in the SP believe that Mulayam himself wanted this to happen and had reached out to some senior Opposition leaders to help make the transition smooth for Akhilesh.

Lucknow votes on May 20