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Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Shivpal Yadav’s party announces candidate for Ghaziabad seat
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections are the first polls that Shivpal Yadav’s party will contest after he broke away from the SP and formed his own party in 2018.
The Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-lohia (PSP-L), founded by former Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Shivpal Yadav, on Tuesday, declared a list of 31 candidates for Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and also announced Sewa Ram Kasana as the party’s candidate from the Ghaziabad parliamentary constituency.
This is the first time that Shivpal’s party will be contesting elections, after he broke away from the SP and formed his own party in 2018. On Tuesday, the PSP-L founder also launched a political front called the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) with the Krishna Patel faction of the Apna Dal and the Peace Party, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
“Of the 31 candidates declared so far, we have Sewa Ram Kasana, who was formerly with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and joined PSP-L as the state secretary of the party. He will be contesting from the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat. We will contest against the Samadwadi Party candidate as they have declared a name. Our party has an identity of its own and should not be seen as an extension of any other party,” Nahar Singh Yadav, PSP-L’S spokesperson, said.
Sewa Ram is from Pasonda in Sahibabad and has worked as a social activist.
“I have a development agenda, especially concerning youth, women, minorities, traders and others. People of Ghaziabad need an MP who is local and readily available to listen to their problems,” Sewa Ram said.
There were speculations on Tuesday that the SP may change its nomination from the Ghaziabad seat.
“Those who want to change their candidate do so but our candidate will not be changed. Our leader has said we can enter into an alliance with secular parties. Our candidate will give tough competition to other candidates,” Chaudhary Pratap Singh, district president of the PSP-L, said.
Shivpal, once one of the most powerful politicians in the SP, had left the party after Akhilesh Yadav had taken over. Shivpal on Tuesday said that his newly formed PDA will contest 79 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats except the one on which SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav will contest.
On Tuesday, six more prospective contestants took nomination forms from the district administration. With these, a total of 27 different persons have taken forms and this also included a form in the name of incumbent Ghaziabad MP General VK Singh (retired) of the BJP.
The BJP, till Tuesday evening, did not declare a list of its contesting candidates, under phase 1 of the Lok Sabha polls scheduled to be held on April 11.
District officials said two independents, Shamsher Rana and Natthu Singh Chaudhary, submitted their nomination forms on Tuesday.
