Rural Vs Urban: BJP, Samajwadi Party Fight For Voters In UP's South Lucknow

The Sarojininagar assembly constituency in Lucknow is set for a close contest between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party which has emerged as a strong challenger to the ruling party amid an apparent anti-incumbency wave.

The Sarojininagar assembly constituency, located in south Lucknow, has a mix of urban and rural voters and over 50 village panchayats fall under it.

While the urban voters usually align with the BJP, the rural voters are reluctant in showing their support to any specific party.

"Our village is located hardly a kilometre away from housing society developed by the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) yet the approach road to our village is in shambles. We have written to the BJP MLA on several occasion but nothing was done.

"The BJP MLA didn't even come to meet us after winning. The villagers will keep this in mind when they vote this time," said Deepak Verma, a resident of Barauna village in the constituency.

Beside, the rural voters have also expressed anger with the ruling party over the issue of stray cattle and rising inflation.

A local vegetable farmer of the area, Ramesh Pal, complained, "I like Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath but they have done nothing to resolve the issue of stray cattle which destroy our crops.

"We have to guard our fields all night from stray cattle. The prices of every day items have also gone up in the last couple of years making it difficult to accommodate the expenses of the family in limited earnings," he said.

Sensing the anti-incumbency wave, the BJP denied ticket to sitting MLA Swati Singh and announced the name of former Enforcement Directorate director Rajeshwar Singh from the seat.

Singh, in his election, campaign has promised development the infrastructure in the constituency.

The challenger Samajwadi Party has pitted former minster Abhishek Mishra who is known to be the trusted lieutenant of party president Akhilesh Yadav.

Mishra, a former minister, in his campaign has alleged that the BJP has failed to take up development in the region.

The BSP has announced the name of Jalees Khan while the Congress is betting on Rudra Daman Singh to win this seat.

Sarojininagar has over 5.5 Lakh voters of which almost half are rural voters. The seat includes substantial Muslim, Dalit, Chhatriya, Brahmin and other backward castes votes.

Around 1.5 lakh voters are young who will play a pivotal role in deciding the winner on the seat.

Historically, Sarojininagar has never been the home turf of BJP despite falling under urban area.

The party won the seat for the first time in 2017 under a strong Modi wave in the state.

Before that, Sarojininagar seat has been held thrice by Samajwadi Party (1993, 1996, 2012) and twice by Bahujan Samaj Party (2002, 2007), while the Congress candidate managed to win once in 1991.

In 2017, BJP candidate Swati Singh secured over one lakh votes. The SP candidate stood second with just over 74,000 votes, followed closely by the BSP candidate who secured 71,000 votes.

According to locals, Congress candidate Rudra Daman Singh can be the game changer from Sarojininagar.

Mr Singh got 21,000 votes when he fought independently in the 2017 election and 41,000 votes in 2012 election. He also holds influence on the rural votes of the constituency.

A sway of rural voters towards Congress can make the election difficult for BJP and favour Samajwadi Party candidate.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)