LUCKNOW: The BJP on Monday announced the names of its candidates for bypoll to Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats scheduled to take place on March 11.
While Upendra Dutt Shukla will contest for the party from Gorakhpur, Kushalendra Singh Patel will be its candidate from Phulpur.
The BJP opened up its cards only after gauging the political pulse and keeping the caste equations in mind as rivals Samajwadi Party and Congress had already declared their candidates on Sunday and Friday, respectively.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is not contesting the bypoll.
The by-election to the two seats was necessitated by resignations of CM Yogi Adityanath and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya after they took up the membership of UP Council in September last year.
With February 20 being the last date of filing nominations, the saffron party opted for Upendra Dutt Shukla, a seasoned politician, a prominent Brahmin face and party’s regional president for the Gorakhpur seat vacated by UP CM
Yogi Adityanath. In fact, Gorakhpur, considered to be a BJP stronghold, has been represented in Lok Sabha by the respective head priests of Gorakshnath Peeth since 1989.
Mahant Awaidyanath, the then head priest of Gorkhnath temple and guru of present CM Yogi Adityanath, was elected from the seat on a Hindu Mahasabha ticket for the first time in 1989.He repeated the feat as a BJP candidate in 1991 and
1996. The baton was then passed to Yogi Adityanath who contested his first election from the seat in 1998 at an age of 26.He has been retaining the seat for the party since then winning it in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014.
Upendra Dutt Shukla, 57, is an old saffron loyalists and a Brahmin face of the party in the region. Earlier, he has contested Assembly elections twice as BJP candidate from Kauriram seat in Gorakhpur parliamentary segment. As per the sources, Shukla’s name was suggested by BJP president Amit Shah and was finalised during CM Yogi’s Sunday visit to Delhi.
For Phulpur, the party chose Kaushalendra Singh Patel, a Kurmi leader who has headed Varanasi Municipal Corporation as BJP mayor twice in the past. Phulpur, dominated by OBCs, is set to be a keen Patel vs Patel tussle as the SP has also fielded a Kurmi Nagendra Paratp Singh Patel.
While BJP, backed by Anupriya Patel-led Apna Dal, which has a considerable hold on Kurmi voters in and around Phulpur, would want to see the battle through, Samajwadis would also strive to woo the OBCs to snatch the seat back to its kitty.
Notably, Phulpur, had been an SP bastion as the party represented it in Lok Sabha in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004. The BSP had won the seat in 2009 and the BJP in 2014.
While the Bahujan Samaj Party is not contesting the bypolls, Congress has has fielded Dr Surheeta Chatterjee Kareem, a gynaecologist, from Gorakhpur and Manish Mishra from Phulpur.