E-Paper
UP MLC polls: Samajwadi Party to field Dr Kafeel Khan
Dr Khan will be the SP's candidate from the Deoria-Kushinagar legislative council seat for the April 9 polls, said Rajendra Chaudhary, the party's national secretary.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) announced on Tuesday that Dr Kafeel Khan will be one of its candidates for the upcoming MLC elections in Uttar Pradesh, which will be held on April 9.
Also Read | UP MLC polls: Nominations for 36 seats to restart from today
“Yes, Dr Kafeel Khan will be our candidate,” Rajendra Chaudhary, the SP's national secretary told Hindustan Times, adding that the former will be fielded from the state's Deoria-Kushinagar legislative council seat.
Also, earlier today, Dr Kafeel Khan met SP national president and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, presenting to him a copy of his book, ‘The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy.’ He tweeted: “Met with Honourable Former Chief Minister Shri @yadavakhilesh and presented him a copy of #TheGorakhpurHospitalTragedy,” Khan posted on Twitter.
In November last year, the UP government terminated the services of Dr Khan, who was a paediatrician at Gorakhpur's Baba Raghav Das (BRD) medical college, where, in August 2017, as many as 63 children died due to shortage of oxygen. In April 2018, he was granted bail by the Allahabad high court which observed that there was no proof of medical negligence against the doctor in the case.
Also Read | Vindicated, Dr Kafeel urges UP government to restore his job, wants to ‘serve the nation’
The polling for Uttar Pradesh MLC elections will be held for 36 seats in 35 local bodies in the country's most populous state. The counting of votes will be held on April 12.
However, as per the original schedule, votes were to be cast on March 3 for 29 local bodies and March 7 for the remaining six local bodies. This schedule was later revised on the request of political parties as the state was already slated to hold assembly elections at the time. Uttar Pradesh voted in seven phases--February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7--while the counting of votes took place on March 10.
