The Bharatiya Janata Party has made six changes in the first list of 29 candidates for Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh that was announced on Thursday evening.
The party has dropped four sitting MPs of reserved constituencies, including Union minister Krishna Raj. Even Scheduled Caste Commission Chairman Ram Shankar Katheria has been denied ticket.
The candidates were announced by BJP in-charge of UP election campaign JP Nadda.
Majority of ministers, barring Krishna Raj, have been given tickets again.
The list includes the names of Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Smriti Irani from Amethi, VK Singh from Ghaziabad, Dr Mahesh Sharma from Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), Satpal Singh from Baghpat and Santosh Gangwar from Bareilly.
“There is caste consolidation against the BJP in Uttar Pradesh after Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav forged an alliance. The emergence of Congress too has given Dalits an option because the marginalised caste has always supported Congress at the national level. This has made BJP cautious. In the previous election, Dalits had voted en bloc for BJP but this time it will not happen and therefore the party has decided to change the candidates from reserved constituencies,” said Manish Mishra, a professor in Lucknow University,
The constituencies where the sitting MPs have been denied tickets are Sambhal, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Mishrikh, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri. Out of these six constituencies, four are reserved seats.
Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Krishna Raj, has been denied ticket from Shahajahanpur. In his place, the BJP has given ticket to a new face, Arun Sagar.
Incidentally, Krishna Raj was entrusted with the responsibility to implement the PM Kisan Samman Scheme under which Rs 6,000 are to be given to marginalised farmers. The first instalment of Rs 2000 has been paid to over four crore farmers on February 24.
Another surprise is from Agra where sitting MP and SC Commission Chairman Ram Shankar Katheria has been denied ticket. In his place Animal Husbandry Minister in Yogi Adityanath government, SPS Baghel, has been fielded by the party.
Baghel, who had earlier won the Lok Sabha seat on SP ticket, joined the BJP before 2017 and was made minister.
Among other changes, the sitting MP from Sambhal has been replaced by Parmeshwar Lal Saini. In Hardoi (SC), sitting MP Anshul Verma has been replaced by Jai Prakash Rawat. In Mishrikh (SC) seat, Anju Bala has been denied ticket and BJP has fielded Ashok Rawat from this seat.
In Fatehpur Sikri constituency, sitting MP Chaudhary Babulal has been replaced by Rajkumar Singh.
Another surprise is Sanghmitra Maurya, daughter of UP Cabinet minister Swami Prasad Maurya. She has been fielded from Budaun, the seat which Samajwadi Party won in 2014 and this time Akhilesh’s cousin Dharmendra Yadav will be in the fray.
The party however gave ticket to Shakshi Maharaj, who had threatened of dire consequences if he was denied ticket from Unnao. In this two-page letter to BJP state president Mahendra Nath Pandey on March 7 and leaked to media on March 12, Shakshi Maharaj had said that if he was denied ticket from Unnao, “the party will have to face dire consequences the result of which will not be very pleasant for the party”.
Cine star Hema Malani has been fielded again from Mathura.
