SP Releases List Of 11 Candidates For Lok Sabha Polls, Fields Mukhtar Ansari's Brother Afzal Ansari From UP's Ghazipur Seat

SP Releases List Of 11 Candidates For Lok Sabha Polls, Fields Mukhtar Ansari’s Brother Afzal Ansari From UP’s Ghazipur Seat

Lok Sabha Election 2024: The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Monday released another list, containing 11 names, of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. The list includes the name of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s brother, Afzal Ansari. The Akhilesh Yadav-led party has fielded Afzal from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur Lok Sabha constituency.

Interestingly, last year, Afzal was disqualified from the Lok Sabha following his conviction in a criminal case, for sentenced to imprisonment for four years. He had won from Ghazipur as a candidate of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the Lok Sabha election held in 2019.

The other candidates whose names featured in Monday’s list released by SP are: Harendra Malik (Muzaffarnagar) Neeraj Maurya (Amla), Rajesh Kashyap (Shahjahanpur), Usha Verma (Hardoi), Rampal Rajvanshi (Misrikh), RK Chaudhary (Mohanlalganj), SP Singh Patel (Pratapgarh), Ramesh Gautam  (Bahraich), Shreya Verma (Gonda), Virendra Singh (Chandauli).

Earlier in the day, Akhilesh Yadav said that he will not join Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ in UP unless seat-sharing between the SP and the grand old party is finalised. “Right now talks are going on, lists have come from their side and from ours as well, the moment the seats are distributed and decided, the Samajwadi Party will join Congress’s Nyaya Yatra,” Yadav was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

“We have given a final offer of 17 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress. Akhilesh Yadav’s participation in the Nyay Yatra in Raebareli on Tuesday will depend on their acceptance,” SP’s chief spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary, told PTI. The SP and the Congress are allies in the anti-BJP INDIA bloc. The success of the seat-sharing talks between the two are crucial, especially after the failure of such talks with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has decided for her party, the TMC, to contest in her state alone.

Earlier, Akhilesh had accepted the invitation from Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge to join the Rahul Gandhi-led ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’, saying that he would participate in the nationwide march in UP’s Amethi or Rae Bareli. However, with no headway being made in the seat-sharing talks between the two parties, there have been reports that the SP Chief could stay away from the Yatra as it makes its way through Uttar Pradesh.

(With inputs from agencies)