NEW DELHI: The BJP on Saturday decided to field Bhojpuri singer Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua from Azamgarh and Ghanshyam Lodhi from Rampur Lok Sabha constituency for the June 23 by-elections.
Yadav had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 parliamentary election from Azamgarh against Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, while Lodhi, an SP MLC, had joined the BJP ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
The Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats became vacant as Akhilesh and Azam Khan resigned after getting elected to the state legislative assembly. These are two of the most prestigious seats for the SP as the party has won them against the Modi wave. The BJP also declared candidates for the seven assembly constituencies across that are going to polls along with the above two Lok Sabha constituencies.
Among its candidates for the assembly is Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha from Town Bordowali. Saha, a Rajya Sabha member, was recently appointed as the state chief minister replacing Biplab Deb. A dentist by profession, Saha will contest the assembly election for the first time. He will be facing Asish Saha of the grand old party.
In two of the other three Tripura seats, women have been nominated. The BJP has fielded Ashok Sinha from Agartala while Swapna Das Paul will be contesting from Surma (SC) and Malina Debnath from Jubarajnagar. Former MLA Sudip Roy Barman, who quit the saffron camp and joined the Congress in February, will lock horns with Ashok Sinha in Agartala. He had won the seat by a comfortable margin in 2018.
The BJP has fielded Rajesh Bhatia from the Rajinder Nagar assembly seat in Delhi, which became vacant following AAP leader Raghav Chadha’s election to Rajya Sabha from Punjab. The saffron party has nominated Gundlapalli Bharath Kumar Yadav from the Atmarkur assembly seat in Andhra Pradesh and former MLA Gangotri Kujur from Mandar (ST) in Jharkhand. The BJP is yet to name its candidates for the third parliamentary seat, Sangrur, in Punjab which was vacated by Bhagwant Mann who became the chief minister after the Aam Aadmi Party won the recently-held assembly elections in the state.