Rajnath surpasses Vajpayee's victory margin in Lucknow

Lucknow, May 17 (IANS) BJP president Rajnath Singh broke the record of victory margin held by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as he was declared victorious from the Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency.

Rajnath Singh trounced Congress candidate Rita Bahuguna Joshi by a margin of 2.72 lakh votes Friday night, which is the highest in the electoral history of the city. Vajpayee, who represented Lucknow when he became the prime minister, won the seat by a margin of 2.16 lakh votes in 1998.

His victory margins in three other polls he contested from Lucknow were 1.17 lakh votes in 1991, 1.18 lakh in 1996 and 1.23 lakh in 1999.

Rajnath Singh got 5.61 lakh votes over Joshi's 2.88 lakh, thus setting a new record of victory margin for the Lucknow seat. In 2009, close aide of Vajpayee and former Uttar Pradesh minister Lalji Tandon won the Lucknow seat by a margin of only 41,000 votes. Joshi polled 2.04 lakh votes in 2009.

This makes the Friday victory seven times higher than the previous count for the BJP. A total of 10.31 lakh votes were polled in the April 30 balloting in the state capital.

TV actor and Aam Aadmi Party candidate Javed Jaffery got a meagre 41,000 votes while the BSP's Nakul Dubey got 64,449 votes. Samajwadi Party's Abhishek Mishra, a minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government polled 56,771 votes.

All the 14 contestants barring Joshi forfeited their deposits in the saffron show at the hustings. The certificate of victory was handed over to the party leaders Saturday by the district magistrate.

Rajnath Singh reached the city Friday night to thank the voters and party leaders.