As the country awaits the result of the World’s biggest democratic exercise, News18-IPSOS, an exit poll survey by Network 18, gives an insight into the probable outcome of the results.
News18-IPSOS suggests that BJP candidate and the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh may emerge as the winner from the seat of Lucknow in the state of Uttar Pradesh. He is contesting against SP-BSP alliance candidate Poonam Shatrughan Sinha, wife of MP Shatrughan Sinha and Congress’ Acharya Pramod Krishnam.
Poonam Shatrughan Sinha is contesting Lok Sabha elections for the first time while Acharya Pramod Krishnam had unsuccesfully contested 2014 election from Sambhal parliamentary constituency.
Earlier in 2014, the BJP won the Lucknow seat with a huge margin of 2,72,749 votes (26.4 per cent) when Rajnath Singh defeated Congress’s Rita Bahuguna. Later in October 2016, Rita Bahuguna left the Congress and joined BJP.
Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow has been a bastion of BJP since 1991. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had consecutive terms from the constituency between 1991 and 2004.
In 2004, Vajpayee defeated SP’s Madhu Gupta with a huge margin of 37.7 per cent and collected 3,24,714 votes. In 1999, Vajpayee defeated Congress’s Dr Karan Singh with a margin of 16.4 per cent.
In 2009, BJP’s Lal Ji Tandon won this seat when he defeated Congress’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi with 6.9 per cent votes.
The Lok Sabha elections in 2019 took place in seven phases across India in the time span of about a month and a half. A total of 543 seats went to polls in which around 900 million voters were expected to exercise their voting rights.
The final results will be announced on May 23.