SP continues its blows on Congress, names candidates for 2 seats left for ally

A day after claiming to have offered 17 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday declared its candidate for the Varanasi constituency and appointed two leaders as in-charge for Amroha. Both Varanasi and Amroha featured in the list of 17 seats offered to the Congress.

In the high-profile Varanasi constituency from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been elected twice, the SP has fielded former minister Surendra Singh Patel, an OBC leader.

The party has appointed Mehboob Ali and Ram Avatar Saini as in-charge of Amroha, indicating that either Ali or Saini will contest from the west UP seat if the Congress decides not to fight from there. In the last Lok Sabha elections, Amroha was won by Danish Ali from the BSP. Following his suspension from the BSP, Ali has come close to the Congress and attended the launch of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, led by Rahul Gandhi, in Manipur.

In the list of candidates declared on Tuesday, SP president Akhilesh Yadav has replaced his cousin brother Dharmendra Yadav with uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav in Badaun.

In the first list of candidates released on January 30, the SP had announced Dharmendra’s candidature from Badaun. On Tuesday, the SP appointed him as in-charge of both Kannauj and Azamgarh, dropping hints that he may contest the Lok Sabha election from either of the two seats that are considered SP strongholds. Dharmendra had, however, faced defeat in Azamgarh bypoll in 2022.

The other four new candidates declared on Tuesday include Ikra Hasan from Kairana, Praveen Singh Aron from Bareilly, Ajendra Singh Rajput from Hamirpur, and Surendra Singh Patel from Varanasi. Ikra is the sister of SP MLA from Kairana Nahid Hasan and daughter of former MP