Lucknow:
Rajnath Singh, BJP president, began his first speech in Lucknow as his party's candidate with a loaded one-liner. "I have come to contest from the constituency of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee."
Mr Vajpayee, the BJP's only prime minister, represented Lucknow five times, thrice as PM. He also remains the BJP's gold standard for leadership.
Mr Singh's unambiguous attempt to claim the Vajpayee legacy is politically significant. BJP insiders say his shift to Lucknow is not a simple case of a big leader switching constituency for a safe contest. They say while Narendra Modi's contest from Varanasi could polarise voters and politics in Uttar Pradesh, Rajnath Singh, by picking Lucknow, is trying to present a more plural image.
His campaign managers in Lucknow ensured a large number of people from the minority community at his reception. In the next two days, Mr Singh plans to meet top Muslim clerics and visit education centres run by members of the community.
And at his press conference he said, "there will be no bias against anyone. I seek the support of minority voters." Mr Singh had recently reached out to Muslim voters by promising that the BJP would apologise if it ever made a mistake.
The attempt, said a senior BJP leader from UP, is to do what Narendra Modi cannot do. "By choosing Lucknow as his constituency he has already tried to position himself as more acceptable than Modi. If he wins, Vajpayee's coveted legacy could be his."
The nearly 20 per cent Muslims in the Lucknow constituency backed Mr Vajpayee each time he contested from here. In 2004, in a rare show of solidarity for a BJP leader, Muslim clerics recited the holy koran for Mr Vajpayee's win at the BJP office here.
Everywhere in country, Muslims are seen as wary of voting for the BJP, because of Mr Modi's hardline image. But in Lucknow, minority voters say they are not averse to voting for Rajnath Singh. They hope that a win from Mr Vajpayee's constituency will improve his chance of positioning himself as an alternative for the Prime Minister's post.
Nawab Jaffar Abdullah, a descendent of the Lucknow royals says, "Many in Lucknow are thinking of backing Rajnath. They feel there is only one man in the BJP who has the cunning, strategy and capability to topple Narendra Modi at the last moment."
The BJP chief has stoutly denied that prime ministerial ambitions were behind his picking Lucknow as his constituency.
Earlier this week, a campaign poster was tweeted from Rajnath Singh's official handle. It had Mr Singh's picture and the slogan "Abki baar BJP sarkar. (This time, a BJP government)." The BJP's official poster is very different - it has a Modi picture, with the slogan "Abki baar Modi sarkar. (This time, a Modi government)."