UP bypolls: Samajwadi Party announces candidates for six seats

The Samajwadi Party on Wednesday announced its list of candidates for six of ten Uttar Pradesh (UP) state assembly seats, where by-polls are due later this year.
The party announced party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s cousin Tej Pratap Yadav as its candidate from Karhal assembly seat and Naseem Siddiqui from Sisamau seat.
From Milkipur in Ayodhya, Ajeet Prasad, son of Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad, will be contesting.
Shobhawati Verma, wife of SP MP from Ambedkar Nagar Lalji Verma, will be contesting from Katehri assembly seat Mustafa Siddiqui will be contesting from Phulpur and Jyoti Bind from Majhwa.
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SP spokesperson Fakhrul Hasan Chand said that the announcement comes early as they want to give sufficient time to its candidates for campaigning.
“The Samajwadi Party wants to defeat BJP and wants to ample give time to candidates for campaigning and that is the reason we have announced our candidates before other parties. As per my knowledge Congress had no claim on the seats which were announced today. The Congress and SP top leadership are in talks, we have announced seats keeping in mind the ‘gathbandhan dharm’”, he said.
“I am sure we will win on all the seats. These are the seats on which either we won or were in number two position. We have always respected Alliance, and top leadership will decide which of the remaining seats will be given to Congress”, he said.
The SP had won Karhal, Sisamau, Phulpur, Milkipur and Katehri seats while it came second on the Majhwa seat in 2022 state assembly polls.
Reacting on the announcement, UP Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson, Rakesh Tripathi raised questions on the SP-Congress alliance.
“It seems the alliance between SP and Congress has hit a rough patch, or maybe it is the effect of Haryana assembly election results. The SP has announced candidates for seats which were asked for by Congress in by-polls, I think SP has shown Congress their place by doing this. The BJP workers are all charged up from Haryana election results and in by-polls we will win all the seats”, Tripathi said.