SP announces one more candidate for polls

The Samajwadi Party declared one more candidate from UP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, taking the total number of candidates it has announced so far to 53 - though its seat-sharing talks with the Congress are pending.

The Samajwadi Party on Wednesday declared one more candidate from Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, taking the total number of candidates it has announced so far to 53 - though its seat-sharing talks with the Congress are pending.

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The party also replaced its candidate for Muzaffarnagar.

"While Prem Kumari Parihar will be our candidate from Fatehpur Sikri, Thakur Sangeet Som will replace Nawazish Alam in the Muzaffarnagar constituency," party general secretary Amar Singh told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Though the party had already announced candidates for 53 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, Amar Singh maintained his party would have an alliance with the Congress.

However, he also asserted that his party will not leave those seats for the Congress that are currently represented by Samajwadi Party MPs.

"Similarly, we will also not ask the Congress to leave those seats where it has sitting MPs," Amar Singh added.

Explaining his "alliance formula", he said on those seats where both parties had lost in the last elections the candidate would be from the one that performed better and had better vote share.

He termed as "politically motivated" the voices from within the party on former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kalyan Singh's new ties with the Samajwadi Party.