NEW DELHI: The BJP on Friday fielded Aditi Singh, who left the Congress to join it, and Asim Arun, who recently quit the IPS, in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls as it released a list of 85 more candidates.
The list also includes incumbent MLA Hariom Yadav, a distant relative of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Hariom Yadav quit the opposition party recently.
The BJP has named both Singh and Yadav from their current seats of Rae Bareli and Sirsaganj respectively, while Arun, a Dalit, will contest from Kannauj, a reserved seat.
The Rae Bareli assembly seat is part of the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency which is represented by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Uttar Pradesh Assembly Deputy Speaker Nitin Aggarwal, who had also left the SP to join the BJP, will fight from Hardoi.
With the fresh list of candidates, which include 15 women, the total number of names announced by the party for the seven-phase election to the 403-member assembly has reached 195.
After filing his nomination papers as an independent candidate from Kheragarh here on Friday, former BJP leader Digamber Singh Dhakrey broke into tears alleging that a senior party leader had betrayed him.
Dhakrey, however, said he will support Yogi Adityanath if he won as an independent candidate.
Dhakrey said he was a native of Kheragarh and the BJP had assured him the ticket from this constituency.
However, he alleged, a party leader ditched him at the last minute so that he could not contest from any other political party.
"Kheragarh is my native place. I will contest with full strength to avenge my betrayal," he told reporters.
"They fielded an outsider, who was defeated by the sitting MLA from the BJP in the 2017 Assembly elections."
"I have a strong hold in this constituency. I have worked here for the past three years, but my ticket was denied at the last moment so that I could not join any other political party," Dhakrey alleged without taking any name.
Dhakrey said he had contested the mayoral election from the Bahujan Samaj Party in 2017 and came next only to the BJP candidate, who won the polls.
He joined the BJP on March 25, 2019.