Winning this Lok Sabha seat, which the BJP has held since 1991, will be a "cakewalk" for Union minister Rajnath Singh, Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma claimed, even as SP's Poonam Sinha seeks to give a tough fight to the saffron party.
The seat was won by late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee five consecutive times between 1991 and 2004, and Sharma believes that Singh will win as he has carried forward the BJP stalwart's "vision for development".
Lucknow is one of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh and will go to polls on Monday, the fifth phase of the general elections.
While the SP-BSP-RLD alliance's Poonam Sinha, who is backed by her actor husband and former BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha, is making her political debut, the Congress has fielded self-styled spiritual guru Pramod Krishnam, who had unsuccessfully contested Sambhal in 2014 and got just 1.52 per cent of the votes.
Krishnam is seeking votes invoking Vajpayee's legacy and has promised that if he wins, he will build a grand statue of Vajpayee in the UP capital on the lines of the Statue of Unity in Gujarat.
The statue in Gujarat is designed as a memorial to India's Home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
In the midst of his hectic campaigning, Sharma told PTI: "The (Lucknow) seat will be a cakewalk for Rajnathji, who has carried forward the vision for development of Atalji in this constituency."