RPN Effect! SP Releases New List Of 3 Candidates, Changes Swami Prasad Maurya’s Constituency

As per the SP's new candidate list, ex-UP Minister Swami Prasad Maurya will also contest from the Fazilnagar seat. He was the sitting MLA from Padrauna and had dared Congress-turned-BJP leader RPN Singh to contest from there.

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party on Wednesday released a list of three more candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. As per the SP’s new candidate list, Swami Prasad Maurya who left the ruling BJP for the Samajwadi Party, will contest the upcoming elections from Kushinagar’s Fazilnagar seat, instead of his stronghold of Padrauna. This means that Maurya, will be up against the ruling party’s Surendra Kushwaha, the son of incumbent BJP MLA Ganga Singh Kushwaha.

He was the sitting MLA from Padrauna and has held the seat since 2007, for four straight terms overall had dared Congress-turned-BJP leader RPN Singh to contest from there.

A few days ago, RPN Singh, who was a big leader of Congress, had joined BJP. It is discussed that RPN will contest from Padrauna on the BJP ticket. In the Lok Sabha elections 2009, Singh defeated Maurya from the Kushinagar parliamentary seat. The political enmity between Swami Prasad Maurya and RPN Singh has been going on for a long while.

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.

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Pallavi 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.

SP has now released all its six candidates for the assembly seats in Lucknow on February 1, Pooja Shukla for Lucknow North, Anurag Bhadauria for Lucknow East, Ravidas Mehrotra for Lucknow Central, Raju Gandhi for Lucknow Cantt, Armaan for Lucknow West, & from Bakshi Lake will be Gomti Yadav. The remaining four candidates are Munna Alvi from Bangarmau, Shyam Sundar Bharati from Bachrava, Tahir Khan from Isauli and Vishambhar Yadav from Baberu.

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.