The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Friday named six more candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and gave Bhadohi to its INDIA bloc partner, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), which then went on to field Laliteshpati Tripathi, the great-grandson of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister the late Kamlapati Tripathi, from the seat.
The six candidates on the SP’s fourth list are: Yashveer Singh (Bijnor), Manoj Kumar (Nagina), Bhanu Pratap Singh (Meerut), Bijendra Singh (Aligarh), Jasveer Valmiki (Hathras) and Daroga Saroj (Lalganj), the party said on X. Barring the Aligarh pick Brijendra Singh, all candidates on the latest SP list are Dalits. The SP has declared 35 candidates so far.
Contrary to month-long speculation that the Samajwadi Party may leave the Nagina seat, currently held by the Bahujan Samaj Party, for Azad Samaj Party (ASP) chief Chandrashekhar Azad, the SP has fielded its own candidate Manoj Kumar from the seat.
In a statement, the Trinamool Congress said, “...we are pleased to announce the candidate from the parliamentary constituency of Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh. We wish the best to Laliteshpati Tripathi and hope he succeeds in this endeavour.”
In 2012, Laliteshpati, who was then with the Congress, defeated Satyendra Kumar Patel of the Samajwadi Party by 8,523 votes in the Marihan assembly constituency in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh. Tripathi had contested the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate from Mirzapur but lost.
{{/usCountry}}In 2012, Laliteshpati, who was then with the Congress, defeated Satyendra Kumar Patel of the Samajwadi Party by 8,523 votes in the Marihan assembly constituency in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh. Tripathi had contested the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate from Mirzapur but lost.
{{/usCountry}}In October 2021, Laliteshpati, along with his father Rajeshpati Tripathi, joined the Trinamool Congress.
Last month, the SP sealed a seat-sharing deal with the Congress. It left 17 seats for the Congress and kept 63 for itself. Eastern U.P’s Bhadohi, now allocated to TMC, is one of these 63 seats.
The SP had also declared Shafiq-ur-Rehman Barq as its candidate for Sambhal seat, but he died later. Besides, the party had declared its candidate in Varanasi, but withdrew the name and gave the seat to the Congress after the seat-sharing pact.