Tandon factor comes into play in Lucknow-West Assembly bypoll

Lucknow, Nov 4 : The 'Tandon factor' has come into play in the November 7 by-election from the Lucknow-West Assembly seat, claimed to be a citadel of the the saffron brigade due to popularity of BJP leader Atal Bihar Vajpayee.

The opposition parties were trying to derive mileage from the inner bickerings in the BJP.

BJP has fielded local leader Amit Puri (44) from the seat vacated by former Minister Lalji Tandon after he won the 15th Lok Sabha elections from Lucknow replacing former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Tandon was reportedly trying to field his son Gopal alias Gopalji for the seat, but the party high command had rejected his plea.

The 'Tandon factor' would still be the crucial and deciding point in the upcoming bypolls. The BJP has bagged victory at the seat in the past six elections, while Tandon is three-time MLA from here, and had won three times consecutively.

The Lucknow-West Assembly seat under old delimitation comprises Chowk, Nakhaas, Hussainabad, Thakurganj of old Lucknow and Aliganj, Mahanagar, Vikas Nagar, Nirala Nagar -- the newer areas.

The seat has 4.25 lakh voters, of which 40 per cent are Muslims.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are making all efforts to 'crush' the Tandon factor by raking up the issue of development.

The opposition is asking voters to see what development the area has witnessed under Tandon.

SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav himself participated in the electioneering process in favour of Bhukkal Nawab, a local resident.

The BSP has fielded Abhinav Mishra against Amit Puri from the much-eyed seat as per its social engineering formula. The party was claiming to carry out remarkable development in the old areas of the city if voted to power.

Shyam Kishore Shukla is in the race for the seat with the ticket of Congress. The Congress party is also contesting the by-elections by bringing up the development issue.

Twenty candidates are in the fray from the seat, which will go to polls on November 7.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
Unauthorised publication of any content from NewKerala.Com is prohibited