Lucknow: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has released another list of 16 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The highlight of this list are names like Afzal Ansari and Ritesh Pandey.
Ansari, brother of jailed gangster Mukhtar Ansari, has been fielded from the strategically important Ghazipur seat. The Ghazipur seat is currently held by BJP's Manoj Sinha, who had defeated Samajwadi Party candidate by a margin of just 30,000 votes. The runner-up BSP candidate had bagged more than 2.40 lakh votes in the 2014 general elections.
Ritesh Pandey, former MLA from Jalalpur, has also been named in the list. Pandey was embroiled in controversy last year after his brother, Ashish Pandey, was held for brandishing a gun outside a five-star hotel in Delhi. Pandey owns liquor business, sugar and rice mills, real estate business, among others.
Strongman Chandrabhan Singh has been fielded from Sultanpur, against BJP’s Maneka Gandhi. BSP state president RS Kushwaha has been given ticket from Salempur seat, while Ashok Kumar Tripathi has been fielded from Pratapgarh, the seat associated with Thakur leader Raghuraj Pratap Singh.
The BSP has named Ram Shiromani Verma from Shravasti parliamentary seat, while Aftab Alam has been fielded from Dumariyaganj. Alam had contested on BSP ticket from Gorakhpur in Assembly elections.
The former MP and five-time MLA from Kaptanganj Assembly seat Ram Prasad Chaudhary has been fielded from Basti seat. The former BSP MLA from Sant Kabir Nagar seat, Bhishm Shankar, alias Kushal Tiwari, will be contesting the Sant Kabir Nagar.
From Deoria seat, the BSP has fielded Vinod Kumar Jaiswal, while from Bansgaon (reserve) seat Sadal Prasad has been given ticket. The BSP has also fielded Sangeeta from Lalganj (reserve) seat while Atul Rai has been fielded from Ghosi. Shyam Singh Yadav has been fielded from Jaunpur seat, T Ram has been fielded from Machlishehar (reserve) seat and Rangnath Mishra has been fielded from Bhadohi.
The BSP is contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha Polls in a pre-poll alliance with Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal. As per the alliance, the BSP is contesting on 38 seats, SP i on 37 seats and RLD is contesting three seats. Two seats of Amethi and Raebareily were left for Congress without any alliance.
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