Denies ticket to five sitting MPs
In its third list for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday announced the names of seven candidates, retaining only two MPs and changing five others, including Rita Bahuguna Joshi the sitting MP from Allahabad.
In a surprising move, the Tourism Minister in the UP government, Jaiveer Singh, has been fielded from Mainpuri against Samajwadi Party’s sitting MP Dimple Yadav. Singh is a BJP MLA from Mainpuri.
In 2022, Dimple Yadav had won the Mainpuri Lok Sabha by-election by defeating Raghuraj Singh Shakya of the BJP by a margin of 2,88,461 votes. The by-election was necessitated after the death of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on October 10, 2022.
“Last time Dimple Yadav won because of the sympathy wave. This time we will be on a level playing field where I will defeat her hands down,” Jaiveer Singh told reporters in Lucknow.
For the Allahabad seat, Neeraj Tripathi, son of Keshari Nath Tripathi, has been given a ticket instead of sitting MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi.
The incumbent MP from Ballia, Virendra Singh Mast, has been denied a ticket and instead, Neeraj Shekhar, son of former prime minister Chandrashekhar, has been given the ticket.
Parasnath Rai has been given a ticket from Ghazipur, former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Manoj Sinha, who had contested from this constituency in the previous election but faced defeat. Rai will face Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Afzal Ansari, who is an SP candidate from Ghazipur.
Furthermore, Praveen Patel has been selected to replace Keshari Devi Patel as the BJP candidate from Phulpur.
The party has retained two candidates, giving tickets to Vinod Sonkar, the sitting MP from Kaushambi, and BP Saroj, the MP from Machhlishahr.
The latest list comprises four candidates from the general category, one from Other Backward Classes, and two from Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe communities.
With the declaration of seven more names, the BJP has so far announced candidates for 70 out of the total 75 seats it is contesting in Uttar Pradesh. The remaining five seats have been allocated to its allies.
The BJP has so far denied tickets to 16 sitting MPs thus far. Across the three lists, BJP has fielded 29 candidates from the general category, 24 from OBCs and 17 from SC/ST communities.
However, the party is yet to announce candidates for Kaiserganj, Deoria, Bhadohi, Rae Bareli and Firozabad.
