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UP elections: BJP names 26 women in its second list
The list has 26 women and candidates belonging to other backward classes (OBCs). In total, of the 195 seats for which it has named candidates, the BJP has named 26 women.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday declared 85 more candidates for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. It has thus far named a total of 195 candidates in four tranches.
The latest BJP list for Uttar Pradesh was announced shortly after chief minister Yogi Adityanath launched the party’s theme song “UP phir maangey bhajapa sarkar (UP again seeks BJP government).”
The list has 26 women and candidates belonging to other backward classes (OBCs). In total, of the 195 seats for which it has named candidates, the BJP has named 26 women.
The BJP has retained candidates in at least 30 of the 195 seats for which it has announced candidates thus far.
Riya Shakya, an OBC candidate, is among the 15 women on the list and will contest from Bidhuna assembly constituency in Auraiya, a seat held by her father Vinay Shakya, who is among the 14 BJP lawmakers, including three ministers who defected to the Samajwadi Party (SP) last week.
The Samajwadi Party is expected to field a majority of BJP rebels on its symbol but has not named its candidate on the Bidhuna seat yet. If it does name Shakya, the move would set up an interesting father-daughter contest.
Uttar Pradesh goes to polls between February 10 and March 7 to elect 403 lawmakers.The results will be announced on March 10.
On January 11, Riya Shakya released a video that went viral in which she claimed that her lawmaker father had been abducted, a claim subsequently denied by Auraiya police and her father.
The BJP’s new list comprises several turncoats: Ramvir Upadhyaya, who was among the Brahmin faces of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), from Sadabad assembly constituency in Hathras; formerl Congress lawmakers Rakesh Singh from Harchandpur and Aditi Singh from Rae Bareli ; Nitin Agarwal, formerly of the Samajwadi Party from Hardoi; Hari Om Yadav, the SP’s Sirsaganj MLA who had joined the BJP in Delhi a few days back.
The list also includes former chief of UP Anti-Terrorist Squad (UP ATS) Asim Arun, a Jatav dalit, who recently quit the Indian Police Service (IPS) with nine years of his tenure remaining. He has been fielded from Kannauj, a reserved seat. When he quit, Arun was the police commissioner of Kanpur and his induction into the party has come in for sharp criticism from the opposition Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal. Another Dalit IPS officer Brij Lal, who joined the BJP after retirement, is already a Rajya Sabha member from UP.
The BJP has finalised its seat-sharing arrangement with its OBC allies, Apna Dal and Nishad party, though it has not made the details public yet.
