Amitabh Bachchan won the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat in the 1984 election
New Delhi:
The Congress’s win in the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat in this election has ended a 40-year dry patch for the party in the constituency. The last time the Congress won this seat, its MP was none other than megastar Amitabh Bachchan.
As the INDIA Opposition bloc pulled off a stunner in Uttar Pradesh by winning 43 out of 80 seats in this election, Congress’s Ujjwal Raman Singh defeated the BJP’s Neeraj Tripathi by over 58,000 votes.
Ujjwal Raman Singh is the son of senior Samajwadi Party leader and former MP Rewati Raman Singh. Earlier with the Samajwadi Party, Ujjwal Raman Singh has earlier been elected MLA and has also served in the Uttar Pradesh government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav between 2004 and 2007. He joined the Congress earlier this year, reportedly after it became clear that the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat will go to the Congress as part of the seat-sharing agreement in the INDIA Opposition bloc.
Among political heavyweights elected from the prestigious Allahabad seat are two former Prime Ministers — Lal Bahadur Shastri and VP Singh — and BJP stalwart Murli Manohar Joshi. In the 1984 election held in the aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan contested the election from his home town and won by a landslide, getting over 68 per cent voteshare. The opponent was formidable — Lok Dal’s HN Bahuguna, who had already been a central minister and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
The 1984 election was swept by the Congress, with the party winning 414 Lok Sabha seats and Rajiv Gandhi — also a friend of Mr Bachchan — taking over as Prime Minister. Three years after his election, Mr Bachchan resigned from Lok Sabha and it was VP Singh who was elected in the bye-election.
In the last election, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, earlier with the Congress, won from Allahabad on a BJP ticket. This time, the party replaced her with Neeraj Tripathi, lawyer and son of former West Bengal Governor late KN Tripathi. Neeraj Tripathi has also served as additional advocate general for Uttar Pradesh government.