LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav today announced the names of his party's nominees for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency and seven of the 13 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh where bypolls will be held soon.
"SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has announced the candidates for seven Vidhan Sabha and Mainpuri Lok Sabha seats," party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said in a statement here.
The party has named Tej Pratap Singh as its candidate for the Mainpuri seat, though there were speculations that SP national general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav might contest from the constituency vacated by the SP president who had also won from the Azamgarh seat.
Tej Pratap is related to the SP supremo.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, Mulayam had contested from two seats -- Mainpuri, his traditional constituency, and Azamgarh. Later, he retained Azamgarh and vacated Mainpuri.
For the Assembly seats, the party has named former MLA Sanjay Garg for Saharanpur City, Nahid Hassan for Kairana, Nawab Jaan Khan for Thakurdwara, Shiv Charan Prajapati for Hamirpur, Shabbir Ahmad Valmiki for Balha, Jushi Singh for Lucknow North and Kunwar Rani Ruchibira for the Bijnor seat.
By-elections are slated to be held for the 13 seats after these fell vacant after the sitting MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha.