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BJP pits Jaya Prada against Azam, gives Allahabad to Rita
MM JOSHI DROPPED Party swaps seats of mother-son duo of Pilibhit MP Maneka Gandhi and Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday released its third list of 29 candidates for Uttar Pradesh, axing eight sitting MPs and swapping seats of mother-son duo of Pilibhit MP Maneka Gandhi and Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi.
While Varun’s Pilibhit shift was anticipated, those close to Maneka said that the union minister had expressed her desire to contest from Karnal in Haryana. However the BJP has sent her to contest from Sultanpur, a Congress bastion adjacent to Amethi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.
Maneka is the widow of Congress stalwart late Sanjay Gandhi, who contested from the undivided Amethi of which Sultanpur was a part.
Actor turned politician Jaya Prada, who joined the BJP earlier on Tuesday, figured prominently as the party candidate from Rampur, where the party axed its sitting MP Nepal Singh.
Jaya, a two-term ex-MP from Rampur, would be up against her bête noire and Samajwadi Party heavyweight Azam Khan, who is the joint candidate of SP-BSP-RLD alliance.
“With Jaya Prada we are confident of a massive win from Rampur," said Chandramohan, UP BJP's Rampur in-charge even as Azam Khan wasn't reachable despite repeated attempts.
In Kanpur the party sacked its sitting veteran Murli Manohar Joshi, replacing him with UP minister Satyadev Pachauri and setting to rest speculation of deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma as Joshi’s replacement.
UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey has got the party’s nod to re-contest from Chandauli while Ramshankar Katheria, its Dalit MP from Agra, has been asked to contest from Etawah, a Samajwadi Party stronghold. Katheria originally hails from Etawah.
UP minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi will contest from Allahabad from where party’s sitting MP Shyama Charan Gupta had defected to the Samajwadi Party and has since become SP’s Banda candidate. Rita is a former mayor of Allahabad.
In Bahraich, where the party’s sitting Dalit MP Savitri Bai Phule had defected to the Congress, the BJP fielded Akshaywar Lal Gaur as her replacement. The party hasn’t tinkered with the constituencies of union ministers Manoj Sinha (Ghaziabad MP) and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur MP). In Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency that comprises of Ayodhya, the religious hot spot that has governed UP politics for decades, the BJP has again opted for its sitting MP Lallu Singh.
The BJP has again fielded Subrat Pathak from Kannauj, who had narrowly lost to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav in 2014 LS polls. This time Dimple is the alliance candidate supported by both BSP and RLD.
Interestingly, earlier in the day, the BJP quietly replaced Rajesh Diwaker, its sitting Dalit MP from Hathras, with Rajvir Singh 'Daler', its lawmaker from Iglas assembly segment. So far the party has changed 8 Dalit MPs in UP, replacing them with new faces.
Till now BJP has named 62 candidates for Uttar Pradesh. It has left two seats for its ally Apna Dal.
