Lok Sabha elections: Poonam Sinha joins SP, likely to contest against Rajnath Singh from Lucknow

Poonam Sinha, wife of actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, has joined the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday. The announcement was made by the party from its official Twitter handle. Sinha joined the SP in the presence of Dimple Yadav, wife of party president Akhilesh Yadav.

Poonam Sinha, wife of actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha. Photo: SP (Twitter)

LUCKNOW: Poonam Sinha, wife of actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, has joined the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday. The announcement was made by the party from its official Twitter handle. Sinha joined the SP in the presence of Dimple Yadav, wife of party president Akhilesh Yadav. According to sources, Poonam Sinha will contest from Lucknow against Home Minister Rajnath as a Mahagathbandhan candidate. They said Sinha will file her nomination papers on Thursday around 10 pm. She will be accompanied by Shatrughan Sinha, who recently joined the Congress and was made party candidate from Patna Sahib constituency in Bihar, and her actor-daughter Sonakshi Sinha, sources said, adding that Dimple Yadav will also join Sinha when she files her papers. Rajnath Singh had won the Lucknow seat in 2014 garnering 55.7 per cent of the total 10,06,483 votes polled. Singh filed his nomination from the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat on Friday. Lucknow is going to polls on May 6 along with a total of 51 constituencies across seven states in the fifth phase of elections.

आज लखनऊ में सांसद श्रीमती डिम्पल यादव जी की उपस्थिति में श्रीमती पूनम सिन्हा जी ने समाजवादी पार्टी की सदस्यता ग्रहण की। pic.twitter.com/AdjeuaYBc3

— Samajwadi Party (@samajwadiparty) April 16, 2019

The Lucknow seat is with BJP since 1991 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee won. He broke his own record in 1996 by defeating Raj Babbar (SP) by a margin of 1,18,671 votes. In 1998, SP gave ticket to Muzaffar Ali, who also tasted defeat and Atal's victory margin rose to 2.16 lakh votes. In 1999, Karan Singh of Congress tried to give a tough fight to Vajpayee but ultimately lost by 1.23 votes. In his last polls in 2004 again he again won by defeating Madu Gutpa (SP) by 2.18 lakh votes. The legacy of Vajpayee was taken forward by his old associate Lalji Tandon, now serving as Governor in Bihar. He won the 2009 polls by securing 34.93 per cent votes while rival Rita Bahuguna Joshi (then Congress) got 27.93 per cent votes. BSP candidate Akhilesh Das was in third place and SP's Nafisa Ali was at fourth place. In 2014, when BJP gave ticket to Rajnath Singh he broke all records and won by a margin of 5,61,106 votes by defeating his nearest rival Congress candidate Rita Bahuguna Joshi (now in BJP). Not only parliamentary polls, the people of Lucknow also gave their support to BJP is mayoral polls. The Lucknow mayor seat is with BJP for over two decades in which Dr SC Rai and Dinesh Sharma served for ten years each and presently the seat is held by BJP's Sanyukta Bhatia.