A day after the Congress suffered an unexpected loss in the Haryana assembly elections, the party was in for another surprise from its INDIA bloc partner Samajwadi Party. The Akhilesh Yadav-led party on Wednesday declared candidates for six out of 10 bypoll-bound assembly seats, including one being eyed by the Congress.
The SP’s much-talked about names include Akhilesh Yadav’s cousin Tej Pratap Yadav, who has been fielded from Karhal. Before announcing his candidature, the party had named him as a candidate for the Kannauj parliamentary constituency for the Lok Sabha elections. But, on a request from the local unit, the party boss replaced him.
Other than Tej Pratap’s candidature from Karhal, the SP fielded Naseem Siddiqui from Sisamau; Ajeet Prasad, son of Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad, from Milkipur in Ayodhya; Shobhawati Verma, wife of Ambedkar Nagar MP Lalji Verma, from Katehri; Mustafa Siddiqui from Phulpur; and Jyoti Bind from Majhwa.
This announcement, however, sparked a fresh controversy as the assembly seats, where candidates were declared, included those that the Congress wanted to contest. Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai said the state unit had sent a proposal to its leadership to contest on five out of the 10 seats.
“We have given a proposal to contest on five assembly seats – Majhwa (Mirzapur), Phulpur (Allahabad), Ghaziabad, Khair (Aligarh) and Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar) to our leadership. These seats are those where BJP candidates had won,” Rai said.
The SP made the move to field candidates on six seats, including Majhwa and Phulpur, on which talks of seat-sharing were reportedly ongoing with the Congress. The ruling BJP was quick to call this a fallout of the disastrous Haryana election result, where the Congress won 37 out of 90 seats.
“It’s the Haryana election effect. The Congress did not share any seats with the SP in the Haryana assembly elections, in which the BJP stunned with a victory for the third time in a row, registering a win on 48 out of 90 seats,” said UP BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi.
The SP, however, claimed that the announcement had been made keeping the seat-sharing in mind. “With an aim to defeat the BJP, the party has announced the name of the candidates, keeping in mind the ‘gathbandhan dharma’,” said SP spokesperson Fakrul Hasan.
On seat-sharing with the Congress, SP senior leader Rajendra Chaudhary said it will be decided by the party chief, whose Karhal assembly constituency will also go to the polls. He vacated it to retain the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat, which he won in the recently held general elections.
Other vacant seats include Khair (Aligarh), Kundarki (Moradabad), Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Phulpur (Prayagraj), Ghaziabad (Ghaziabad), Majhawan (Mirzapur), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), and Milkipur (Ayodhya). Sisamau (Kanpur) became vacant after SP MLA Irfan Solanki was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, bringing the total number of vacant seats to 10.
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