Lagatar24 Desk
Lucknow, Feb 5: The BSP announced a list of 54 candidates on Saturday for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, including Khwaja Samsuddin running against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban constituency.
The Mayawati-led party has offered tickets to seven Muslim candidates in its most recent list.
Santosh Tiwari of the Bahujan Samaj Party is running for the assembly seat of Fazilnagar in Kushinagar district. Tiwari will face former BSP leader and Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Swami Prasad Maurya.
Prateek Pandey of Katehari and Chandra Prakash Verma of Akbarpur have been handed tickets by the BSP. Ambedkarnagar district encompasses both constituencies.
Lalji Verma of the BSP and Ram Achal Rajbhar of the Congress won Katehari and Akbarpur, respectively, in the 2017 state assembly elections.
Verma and Mr Rajbhar joined the SP at a ‘Janadesh Maharally’ in Ambedkarnagar in November last year.
Uma Shankar Singh, the BSP’s sitting MLA from Rasra in Ballia, is running for re-election.
Rajendra Singh has been nominated as the party’s candidate for Chillupar in Gorakhpur. Vinay Shankar Tiwari formerly held the seat but afterwards defected to the SP.
The BSP has announced candidates for 54 assembly seats in the districts of Ambedkarnagar, Balrampur, Siddharthanagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, and Ballia.
On March 3, these districts will vote in the sixth phase of the state assembly elections.