Ex-ED officer Rajeshwar Singh leading by over 13,000 votes in UP’s Sarojini Nagar

PTI

Lucknow, March 10

Former ED officer and BJP candidate Rajeshwar Singh is leading by a margin of more than 13,000 votes over his nearest Samajwadi Party rival in the Sarojini Nagar assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow.

Singh has got 42,284 votes while Abhishek Mishra has 28,371 votes, according to updates on the Election Commission website at 3 pm.

Mishra is considered to be a trusted lieutenant of Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav. Singh was serving as the joint director of the federal probe agency at its zonal office in Lucknow and he took voluntary retirement from service (VRS), which was approved by the Centre in January.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer, who turns 49 tomorrow, began his civil service career with the Uttar Pradesh Police, in which he served for about 10 years. The rest 14 years of his service were in the ED, which he had joined on central deputation in 2007.

“While there are still a few rounds (of vote counting) to go...we would win by a huge margin. I would say that this victory of the party in Uttar Pradesh is a victory of the ideology of the BJP. The ideology of the country first. The other parties we were fighting had the ideology of family first, mafia first, criminals first,” Singh said.

“We are heading for a SP-free Uttar Pradesh...the party (SP) will be wiped off from the state now,” he told PTI.

Singh said he will want to work for women and the youth.

The BJP gave the poll ticket to Singh for the Sarojini Nagar seat over state minister Swati Singh and her husband Dayashankar Singh, the BJP state vice president.

A total of 14 candidates contested the polls from this seat.