|HT|
The BJP on Thursday finalised the list of 172 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections amid the heavy losses that the party is witnessing with the back-to-back exits of heavyweight ministers and MLAs from the party. It was reported earlier that chief minister Yogi Adityanath is likely to contest from Ayodhya. Insiders confirmed that both the chief minister and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya will be contesting in the election. The seats for which the candidate list has been finalised will go to the polls in the first few phases, beginning February 10. The party is also considering fielding Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma and state unit president Swatantra Dev Singh.
While Maurya may contest from the Sirathu constituency, Dinesh Sharma may be fielded from any Lucknow constituency.
The list has been finalised by the BJP's Central Election Committee. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also supposed to attend the meeting, held in Delhi, virtually on Thursday. In the meeting continuing for days, the party scrutinised the candidates for more than 300 Assembly seats.
Addressing the media at the BJP headquarters, Maurya said the party held wider deliberations on the 172 assembly seats and will register a bigger victory than the 2017 assembly polls. BJP president J P Nadda and Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari joined the meeting via video conferencing as they have tested Covid positive. Union home Minister Amit Shah and several other leaders besides those from Uttar Pradesh, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, met physically.
The seven-phase Uttar Pradesh assembly polls are to be held between February 10 and March 7. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 while the counting of votes will take place on March 10.
The Congress on Thursday released the party's first list of 125 candidates, including 50 women. The party has also fielded Unnao rape victim's mother Asha Singh from the Unnao Assembly constituency. Addressing a press conference, she said 40 per cent of the Congress candidates are women and another 40 per cent are youth and by doing so the party is making a new and historic beginning.
(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.)