SP lists picks for 16 LS seats, including 4 Congress was eyeing

11 months ago 14

LUCKNOW:

Samajwadi Party

kicked off the poll season in earnest on Tuesday, becoming the first party to declare a list of candidates for 16 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh amid talks with INDIA ally

Congress

, which had been angling for at least four of those constituencies.
The party picked three members of founder Mulayam

Singh Yadav

's clan - daughter-in-law and Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav, nephew Dharmendra Yadav from Badaun, and his cousin and SP secretary general Ram Gopal Yadav's son Akshay Yadav from Firozabad. SP retained sitting MP Shafiq-ur-Rehman Barq in Sambhal.
Poll strategists said being first off the blocks meant sending across the message that Samajwadi Party was ready to reach out to voters while other parties were still to draw up their shortlists.
But many see this as more of a pressure tactic meant to get Congress to expedite seat-sharing talks. Samajwadi Party announcing candidates for Farrukhabad, Lakhimpur Kheri, Dhaurhara and Lucknow, all of which Congress was looking to contest, is said to be part of the Akhilesh Yadav-led party's gambit.

Akhilesh had said recently that his party would leave 11 seats in Uttar Pradesh for its INDIA ally Congress.
Farrukhabad has been the traditional bastion of Congress' Salman Khurshid, a former Union minister. Neither Congress nor Khurshid commented on the surprise sprung by Samajwadi Party, which fielded Naval Kishore Shakya.
Congress was speculated to have earmarked Lakhimpur Kheri for Ravi Verma, the three-time SP MP who switched sides in Nov last year. SP's pick for the seat is Utkarsh Verma.

In Dhaurhara, SP fielded former MLC Anand Bhadauria. He will make his Lok Sabha poll debut in a seat seen as a Congress stronghold till Jitin Prasada joined BJP. For Lucknow, SP has nominated Ravidas Mehrotra.
Others who made it to Samajwadi Party's first list are Devesh Shakya (Etah), Annu Tandon (Unnao), Raja Ram Pal (Akbarpur),

Shivshankar Singh Patel

(Banda), Awadhesh Prasad (Faizabad), Kajal Nishad (Gorakhpur), Lalji Verma (Ambedkar Nagar) and Ram Prasad Chaudhary (Basti).

Article From: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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