UP polls: Swami Prasad Maurya's constituency changed, will contest from Fazilnagar

Uttar Pradesh assembly elections 2022: The former minister, who left the ruling BJP for the SP in January, is currently an MLA from Padrauna. He is a 4-term legislator from the constituency, and has held it since 2007.

Former Uttar Pradesh minister Swami Prasad Maurya, who, last month, left the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the Samajwadi Party (SP), will contest the upcoming state assembly elections from Kushinagar's Fazilnagar seat, instead of his stronghold of Padrauna. The SP leader is the sitting MLA from Padrauna, which is also in Kushingar, and has held the seat since 2007, for four straight terms overall.

Former UP minister Swami Prasad Maurya (Deepak Gupta/HT)

Maurya's name was on the SP's fresh list of candidates, comprising three names, released by the party on Wednesday. Besides the now-former state labour minister, the Akhilesh Yadav-led party has announced Abhishek Mishra from Lucknow's Sarojini Nagar seat and Pallavi Patel from Sirathu in Kaushambi.

This means that Maurya, who joined the BJP from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2016, will be up against the ruling party's Surendra Kushwaha, the son of incumbent BJP MLA Ganga Singh Kushwaha.

Patel, the sister of Union minister and BJP ally Anupriya Patel, will face deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya. Mishra, meanwhile, will challenge former Enforcement Directorate (ED) joint director Rajeshwar Singh, who opted for voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

From Padrauna, Swami Prasad Maurya was widely expected to face former Union minister RPN Singh, who left the Congress on January 25 and joined the BJP the same day. In the Lok Sabha elections 2009, Singh defeated Maurya from the Kushinagar parliamentary seat.

Uttar Pradesh will vote in seven phases, beginning February 10, while the counting of votes will take place on March 10. The polling for rounds 2-7 will be conducted on February 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7.