'Samajwadi Party will soon name Lucknow candidate'

The Samajwadi Party Tuesday said it would soon announce a candidate for Lucknow after the Supreme Court barred its first choice, film star Sanjay Dutt, from contesting elections.

The Samajwadi Party Tuesday said it would soon announce a candidate for Lucknow after the Supreme Court barred its first choice, film star Sanjay Dutt, from contesting elections.

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"The decision on a new candidate to represent the SP (Samajwadi Party) from the prestigious Lucknow seat will soon be taken by the party's parliamentary board," party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told reporters here.

The party had announced Dutt as its candidate for the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat, represented in the outgoing house by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Asked if Dutt's wife Manyata would be the party candidate, Chaudhary said the final call would be taken by party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, general secretary Amar Singh and senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav in consultation with the party's parliamentary board.

The actor's hopes to plunge into electoral politics were dashed after the apex court refused to suspend his conviction for owning illegal arms in the run-up to the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai.

The court stated that in order to stop criminalisation of politics, the electoral laws did not allow a person convicted for a crime and sentenced to jail for over two years.