Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Sunday declared 25 candidates for the 2024 parliamentary polls in Uttar Pradesh. The party gave Mohammad Irfan Saifi a ticket from Moradabad, Mujahid Hussain from Amroha, Majid Ali from Saharanpur, Zeeshan Khan from Rampur, Anis Ahmad Khan alias Phool Babu from Pilibhit, Shaukat Ali from Sambhal, Abid Ali from Aonla, Surendra Singh Pal from Nagina, Girish Chandra Jatav from Bulandshahr, Dodram Verma from Shahjahanpur, Vijendra Singh from Bijnor, Praveen Bansal from Baghpat, Devratt Tyagi from Meerut, Dara Singh Prajapati from Muzaffarnagar, Shreepal Singh from Kairana, Rajendra Singh Solanki from Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hembabu Dhangar from Hathras, Ram Niwas Sharma from Fatehpur Sikri, Sarika Singh Baghel from Etawah, Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi from Akbarpur, Kamal Kant Upmanyu from Mathura, Satendra Jain Souli from Firozabad, Pooja Amrohi from Agra, Surendra Chandra Gautam from Jalaun and Kuldeep Bhadauria from Kanpur.
The BSP ticket distribution focused on Muslim outreach with seven out of 25 candidates hailing from the minority community. The BSP, a Dalit-centric party, denied tickets to two sitting Lok Sabha members — Haji Fazlur Rehman from Saharanpur and Malook Nagar from Bijnor.
Also read: As BSP MPs desert the party, Lok Sabha election to be a reckoning for Mayawati
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BSP contested 37 parliamentary seats in an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) and won 10 seats — Saharanpur, Bijnor, Nagina, Amroha, Ambedkar Nagar, Shravasti, Lalganj, Ghosi, Janupur and Ghazipur. Uttar Pradesh is politically the most crucial State in India with 80 Lok Sabha seats.