The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday released its seventh list of candidates for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, giving tickets to 91 candidates, including the incumbent lawmaker from Ayodhya, Ved Prakash Gupta.
The party, in its latest list, fielded 13 ministers for the polls. It also gave tickets to 25 OBCs (other backward classes), 21 Dalits, 20 Brahmins and 18 Thakurs among others.
With this, the party has so far declared the names of 295 candidates, including 37 women, for next month’s polls. The state has 403 seats. At least 44 lawmakers have been dropped so far.
According to the list, Gupta has once again been fielded from Ayodhya, to take on Samajwadi Party’s Tej Narayan, alias Pawan Pandey, whom he had defeated in the 2017 elections. Narayan, however, had won the seat in 2012 after defeating BJP’s Lallu Singh in the polls.
Earlier, it was speculated that chief minister Yogi Adityanath would contest the polls from Ayodhya. The BJP, however, later announced that Adityanath will fight from Gorakhpur Urban assembly constituency.
“I am grateful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, chief minister Yogi Adityanath and the party for reposing faith on me again. I am fortunate that Ram Mandir is coming up in Ayodhya during my tenure as lawmaker and I will try to complete all pending work (in my constituency) in my second tenure as MLA,” Gupta said.
{{/usCountry}}“I am grateful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, chief minister Yogi Adityanath and the party for reposing faith on me again. I am fortunate that Ram Mandir is coming up in Ayodhya during my tenure as lawmaker and I will try to complete all pending work (in my constituency) in my second tenure as MLA,” Gupta said.
{{/usCountry}}While voting in the state will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7, Ayodhya will go to the polls in the fifth phase, on February 27.
Several leaders who are believed to be close to Adityanath were given tickets by the party on Friday. The chief minister’s media adviser and former journalist Shalabh Mani Tripathi was fielded from Deoria for the first time.
The ministers who have been fielded include Siddharth Nath Singh (from Allahabad West), and Nand Gopal Gupta ‘Nandi’ (from Allahabad South).
Agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi also found a place in the list and he will contest from Pathardeva.
In other seats of the Ayodhya district, the party has retained its sitting MLAs Baba Gorakhnath from Milkipur (reserved constituency) and Ram Chandra Yadav from Rudauli. Dr Amit Singh Chauhan, son of sitting MLA Shobha Singh Chauhan, was given a ticket from Bikapur.
Aarti Tewari, the wife of former BJP MLA Indra Pratap Tewari “Khabbu Tewari”, was fielded from Gosainganj assembly constituency (also in Ayodhya). Indra Pratap had won the Gosainganj seat in 2017 on a BJP ticket. His membership of the assembly was, however, terminated last year after he was held guilty by the MP-MLA court in Ayodhya in a 29-year-old fake marksheet case.
Ayodhya Sadar, Rudauli, Gosaiganj, Bikapur and Milkipur are the five seats in Ayodhya district. In the 2012 assembly polls, the Samajwadi Party had won four out of five assembly seats in the district.
The party is yet to name its candidates from Karhal assembly seat of Mainpuri, from where SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is set to contest the polls. Asked to comment on this, a party leader, on condition of anonymity, said: “Have some patience.”