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1962- When Vajpayee suffered a shock defeat in Lok Sabha from Balrampur

Vajpayee was humbled in his turf.

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Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the rising star in Jan Sangh, whose debut speech in Parliament even impressed Pandit Nehru, suffered a shock defeat from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh in 1962. Balrampur most famous for its sugar handed a bitter loss to Vajpayee who lost to Subhadra Joshi of Congress.

Vajpayee's first foray in electoral politics was in 1953, when he lost Lok Sabha byelection from Lucknow. In the 1957 Lok Sabha election, Vajpayee had contested from Balrampur, Lucknow and Mathura. He lost badly in Mathura, fell short in Lucknow but won against  Hyder Hussain of Congress by around 10 thousand votes from Balrampur. In the next election, Congress roped in Gandhian Subhadra Joshi. Incidentally, both Vajpayee and Joshi had their first brush with activism during the 1943 Quit India movement. But ideologically both were in separate poles. Joshi managed to defeat Vajpayee, who was slowly becoming an important face for the opposition in Parliament and outside. Cinestar Balraj Sahni reportedly contested for Joshi.

However, despite defeat, Vajpayee was soon back to the Parliament as he was too precious an asset for the Jan Sangh. He was elected as Rajya Sabha MP in the same year. In 1967, Vajpayee had his revenge when he managed to defeat Joshi hands down. Vajpayee never looked back since then and was only out of Parliament for a brief time between 1984-86. In 1984, BJP was blown away by Congress riding the sympathy wave. Vajpayee faced a heavy defeat in Gwalior against Madhav Rao Scindia. He was elected to Rajya Sabha couple of years back. In total, Vajpayee was a 10 times Parliamentarian, 8 times from Lok Sabha, twice from Rajya Sabha. From 91’ to 2009, Vajpayee was a MP from Lucknow. Home Minister Rajnath Singh is currently the MP from UP’s capital and speaks highly about former PM’s contribution towards development of the city.

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