Electoral fate of Rajnath, Sonia locked in EVMs

The electoral fate of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) counterpart Rajnath Singh was locked in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha polling in Uttar Pradesh.

While, Sonia was contesting from her traditional Rae Bareli constituency, Rajnath had shifted from Ghaziabad to Lucknow, which was represented by former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the past multiple times.

Meanwhile, the state logged 59.06% polling in the 14 parliamentary constituencies spread over 17 districts in central UP and arid zone of Bundelkhand region.

The day witnessed extremely hot weather, yet people braved scalding heat to exercise their franchise.

Maximum and minimum voting%age was reported from Jhansi (70.40%) and Rae Bareli (52.60%). Lucknow polled 54.35% votes.

Besides, three union ministers were in fray in this phase, including Sriprakash Jaiswal (Kanpur), Pradeep Jain 'Aditya' (Jhansi) and Jitin Prasad (Dhaurahra). P L Punia, the Chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes is contesting from Barabanki.

Rajnath was facing a tough challenge from Congress' Rita Bahuguna Joshi. While Rajnath had been banking upon Vajpayee's legacy and the urban voters in Lucknow for victory, Joshi was hoping to get support from Brahmins, Muslims and the Uttarakhand diaspora.

Also in fray from Lucknow was actor-producer Javed Jaffery as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) nominee and Samajwadi Party's UP minister of state Abhishek Mishra, a former visiting faculty of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Jaiswal was locked in a contest with BJP's senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who was shifted from Varanasi to Kanpur. Jain had a face-off with BJP's firebrand leader and former Madhya Pradesh CM Uma Bharti.

The 14 constituencies are Dhaurahra, Sitapur, Misrikh, Unnao, Mohanlalganj, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Kanpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur and Barabanki. A total of 233 candidates, including 39 women, were in fray.

In 2009 polls, these constituencies had recorded 48% polling, which had improved to 61.56% in 2012 assembly polls. About 24.6 million electorates were eligible to vote.

In last general elections, Congress had won 6 seats out of these 14 seats, followed by Samajwadi Party (SP) 4, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 3 and BJP one.