PM Modi offering prayers to Lord Buddha at Ambedkar Mahashaba campus in Lucknow on Friday. (PTI photo)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Lucknow on Friday, becoming the first PM to visit the Uttar Pradesh capital in 11 years.
For a city that was once the parliamentary constituency of then prime minister and BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the four-hour-long trip of PM Modi had many firsts.
This was the first time that PM Modi visited the state capital as prime minister, and it was also for the first time after Mr Vajpayee's famous 2004 drive through Hazratganj for his nomination, that a prime minister's cavalcade drove through the busy and famous thoroughfare.
PM Modi had earlier been to Lucknow on March 2, 2014 for an election rally at the outskirts of the state capital.
Manmohan Singh had visited the city as prime minister on September 1, 2005 for the inauguration of an insurance scheme.
Mr Vajpayee last visited Lucknow on April 27, 2007 when he came to canvas for the party in the state assembly polls. He had then predicted that his age might bar him from any future trips to the city he loved so much.