The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday released the list of two more Lok Sabha candidates in Uttar Pradesh along with four candidates for the Assembly byelection. Thakur Vishwadeep Singh has been given ticket to contest from Firozabad against the Samajwadi Party (SP) Akshay Yadav, while Shashank Mani Tripathi will be the candidate for the Deoria Lok Sabha seat.
Mr. Tripathi’s candidature follows a denial of ticket to sitting MP Ramapati Ram Tripathi.
With the announcement, the BJP has declared most of its candidates in U.P. for the Lok Sabha election apart from Raebareli and Kaiserganj, which is represented by controversial leader and six-term MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
The BJP also declared four candidates for the byelection for Assembly seats in the State which includes Arvind Singh from the Dadraul Assembly seat, O.P. Shrivastava from the Lucknow East, Shailendra Singh Shailu from the Gainsari Assembly constituency, and Shravan Gond from the Duddhi (Scheduled Tribe) reserved Assembly constituency.
The byelection to the four Vidhan Sabha segments will be held in four phases simultaneously with the Parliamentary polls. The byelection will held in the Dadraul Assembly constituency on May 13, Lucknow East on May 20, Gainsari Assembly seat on May 25, and Duddhi Assembly segment on June 1.
Arvind Singh, who is the candidate from Dadraul, is the son of former MLA Manvendra Singh, whose death this year after a prolonged illness vacated the seat.
Shravan Gond, who has been declared as the candidate from Duddhi, is an office bearer of the party’s Scheduled Tribe (ST) wing. The Duddhi constituency fell vacant after the disqualification of sitting MLA Ramdular Gond in December 2023. Mr. Gond was sentenced to 25 years of rigorous imprisonment for raping a minor nine years ago.
