LUCKNOW: While retaining almost all the ministers in the list of 91 candidates released on Friday, the ruling BJP has denied tickets to 17 (18.5 per cent) sitting MLAs and has given maximum 21 tickets to candidates belonging to Brahmin community at a time when the perception goes that Brahmins are drifting away from the saffron brigade.
Moreover, the party, which announced the candidates for 4th and 5th phases, has fielded nine women and 20 SC candidates. However, the names of candidates for nine assembly segments falling in Lucknow district have yet to be announced.
Significantly, in Ayodhya, the apry has reposed faith in sitting MLA Ved Prakash Gupta. Gupta had offered his seat to CM Yogi Adityanath when speculations about his candidature from the temple town were rife. Later, the party decided to field Yogi from Gorakhpur Urban, his stronghold. This seat was represented
in Assembly by BJP’s four time MLA Dr Radha Mohan Das Agarwal. This time the party has not given him ticket from any other alternative seat so far.
The 6th list also has comprises of the name of CM’s Information advisor Shalambhmani Tripathi from Deoria. Interestingly, Shalabh had been trying to get a ticket from Deoria for the past few Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
The ministers retained in the list of 91 candidates include, MSME minister Siddharth nath Singh from Allahabad West, Nandgopal Nandi from Allahabad South, Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi from Patthadeva, health Minister Jai Pratap Singh from Bansi in Siddharthnagar, Jai Prakash Nishad from Rudrapur, Suresh Pasi from Jagdishpur, Basic Education Minister Satish Dwivedi from Itwa against former speaker and SP candidate Mata Prasad Pandey and Upendra Tiwari from Phephna in Ballia.
However, the minister for cooperatives and BJP veteran Mukut Bihari Verma has been denied ticket and the party has replaced him with his son Guarav Verma in Kaiserganj.
Interestingly, Congress turncoat Rakesh Sachan, who joined the BJP only a couple of days back, had been given ticket from Bhognipur assembly constituency. In Deoria instead of SP Tripathi, who had won by-poll last year, Shalabhmani Tripathi has been given ticket.
Interestingly, minister in Yogi Government and a senior BJP leader Shriram Chauhan’s Dhanghata seat has been replaced. In his place, Ganesh Chauhan has got the BJP ticket, while Shriram Chauhan has been shifted to Khajni assembly constituency.
The BJP women candidates in the new list are Sindhuja Mishra (Kunda), Neelam Karwariya (Meja), Aarti Kol (Karaon), Aarti Tiwari (Goshainganj), Saroj Sonkar (Balha), Anupama Jaiswal (Bahraich), ANeelam Sonkar (lalganj), Manju Sonkar (Mehnagar) and Sunita Parishit Singh (Zamania).
With this new list, BJP has released names of 295 candidates for the 403 Assembly constituencies of Uttar Pradesh. The saffron party had released its first list of 107 candidates for Uttar Pradesh on Janaury 15 followed second and third smaller lists. On January 21, the fourth list of 85 candidates was released.