Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party picks Jayant Chaudhary as Rajya Sabha candidate

|HT|

Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary has been picked by Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party as the candidate for Rajya Sabha. The 43-year-old leader “will be the joint candidate for Rajya Sabha from (the) Samajwadi Party and (the) Rashtriya Lok Dal,” the SP said in a tweet on Thursday morning. The two parties had contested the February-March state elections in Uttar Pradesh together. The update comes a day after former union minister Kapil Sibal filed the Rajya Sabha nomination with support from Akhilesh Yadav’s party. The 73-year-old leader - who had led a group of 23 rebels in asking sweeping reforms in Congress - said he had quit from the party earlier this month. “I have filed for nomination as an Independent candidate. I have always wanted to be an independent voice in the country,” Sibal said, adding, “On May 16, I resigned from the Congress Party.”

“He is an eminent lawyer and has a political career. He had effectively put and discussed important issues in Lok Sabha, and Rajya Sabha. The country has many issues facing it and I hope that he will effectively put issues in the Rajya Sabha,” Akhilesh Yadav said on Sibal filing the RS nomination; he is said to be close to the Yadav family. Meanwhile, some reports earlier had suggested that Jayant Chaudhary won’t be sent to Rajya Sabha by the SP. But Thursday’s tweet cleared the air.

Ahead of the UP assembly elections, there was buzz about Chaudhary receiving an offer to join the BJP. The RLD chief, however, had said: “We are not a ‘chavanni’ that will flip.” The RLD is said to have significant influence in western UP.

The Samajwadi Party has improved its tally in the UP assembly this time after winning 111 seats, as compared to 47 seats in the last state election. Akhilesh Yadav is leading the opposition charge in the state assembly.

He had quit as the Lok Sabha MP soon after the UP election result.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)