Lucknow, Apr 29: Defence Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate from the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat, Rajnath Singh on Monday held a roadshow in Lucknow before filing his nomination papers.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami also accompanied Rajnath Singh in the roadshow.

Lucknow will vote in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on May 20. Rajnath Singh will face Samajwadi Party candidate Ravidas Mehrotra from this seat.

Rajnath Singh also offered prayers at the Dakshin Mukhi Hanuman Temple in Lucknow. He also offered prayers at the Hanuman Setu Temple in Lucknow.

Praising the Defence Minister over the pace of development in Lucknow, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that the work started under former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been taken forward by Rajnath Singh.

"I have seen the changing Lucknow, today there are flyovers, metro, all kinds of parks, roads, lights, streets. Lucknow has developed very fast and the work started during Atal Bihari's time, all of them have been taken forward under the leadership of Rajnath Singh and today the whole country is ready to make Prime Minister Modi the Prime Minister for the third time and there is enthusiasm among the people, there is passion, there is excitement everywhere," CM Dhami told ANI.

Uttar Pradesh Minister and BJP leader Swatantra Dev Singh said that Rajnath Singh has always paid attention to the problems of the Dalits and backward classes.

"During his journey from the President of Yuva Morcha to the National President of BJP, he has always paid attention to the Dalits, the exploited, the deprived, and the backward classes and today he is going to file his nomination. This is going to be a grand nomination," he said.

Rajnath Singh in 2019 had defeated Samajwadi Party Poonam Shatrughan Sinha with over 6.3 lakh votes. He had defeated Congress candidate Rita Bahuguna Joshi by a margin of 2,72,749 votes in 2014.

Two phases of Lok Sabha polls have been concluded.

In the first phase, polling was held in Arunachal Pradesh (2 seats), Assam (5), Bihar (4), Chhattisgarh (1), Madhya Pradesh (6), Maharashtra (5), Manipur (2), Meghalaya (2), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Rajasthan (12), Sikkim (1), Tamil Nadu (39), Tripura (1), Uttar Pradesh (8), Uttarakhand (5), West Bengal (3), Andaman and Nicobar (1), Jammu and Kashmir (1), Lakshadweep (1) and Puducherry (1).

The second phase election was concluded on April 26. This phase saw polling on 88 Lok Sabha constituencies, including all 20 seats in Kerala, 14 in Karnataka, 13 in Rajasthan, eight in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, five each in Assam and Bihar, six in Madhya Pradesh, three each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one each in Tripura, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir.

The 2024 general elections will be held in India in seven phases, from April 19 to June 1, to elect the 543 members of the 18th Lok Sabha. The results will be announced on June 4.

(ANI)

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