BJP's Neelam Sonkar Nominated From Lalganj For 2024 Lok Sabha Elections

Neelam Sonkar won the 2014 parliamentary elections from Lalganj seat on BJP ticket. She obtained the BJP ticket again to run for the 18th Lok Sabha elections. 

She is a postgraduate from Gorakhpur University. Sonkar has been a member of the Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment and the Committee on Standup India Programme. She lost the 2019 elections to Sangeeta Azad due to the SP-BSP coalition from Lajganj, however, she had been active in the constituency. This year the elections here will take place on 25 May.

During her tenure in the Lok Sabha (2014-19), Sonkar registered 92 percent attendance, participated in 49 debates, and asked 379 questions. Her prime focus in the house remained education, health, infrastructure, river linking, tourism, and culture preservation among many others.

Lalganj Lok Sabha constituency is comprised of 6 assembly segments including Atrauliya, Nizamabad, Phoolpur Pawai, Didarganj, and Lalganj. Lalganj is dominated by Muslim and Schedule Caste (25.8%). It is a part of the Azamgarh district which is considered a bastion of the Samajwadi party.

There is an interesting fact about the politics in Uttar Pradesh where the seat in the constituency is reserved for certain categories considering their high population and to enhance their political representation. Reportedly, in Uttar Pradesh, Dalits have largely been elected only from the reserved seats with near zero representation from the non-reserved seats. The political parties have also largely refrained from giving tickets to Dalits in unreserved seats. In unreserved seats, even the Dalit-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has depended on non-Dalit candidates.

Lalganj constituency is an SC category parliament seat. Currently, all the assembly seats of the constituency have been won by Samajwadi Party and since 1996 the Lalganj constituency seat has been occupied by Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party alternatively except in 2014. In 2019, BSP got 54.01 percent of votes in the constituency.

Here the literacy rate is 60.8 percent which is well below the national average.  The constituency is dominated by the rural population with rural and urban percentages is 96.8% and 3.2%. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the voter turnout remained low with 54.79 percent only.