Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the former prime minister and sitting Member of Parliament from Lucknow, was called on by the party chief Rajnath Singh before he announced the seat, according to BJP sources.

"Lalji Tandon would be the party's candidate from Lucknow seat," Rajnath said in a statement released from the party headquarters in New Delhi [Images].

BJP had earlier made it clear that any announcement on a candidate form Vajpayee's seat would only be taken as per the choice of the former prime minister.

Tandon, who has long been constituency in-charge for Vajpayee, became a minister in the Kalyan Singh [Images] government and was later appointed as the urban development minister in the Maywati regime of the BJP-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance.

The UP leader was in news prior to the 2004 Lok Sabha polls when a stampede killed more than 20 people on his birthday function while distributing sarees to the "poor".

Tandon was also named in a First Investigation Report by the Election Commission for a controversial CD during the 2007 assembly polls in UP.