The BJP on Wednesday released a list of candidates for seven parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh, dropping three sitting MPs and including as many unexpected names.
Rita Joshi, daughter of former chief minister Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna and sitting MP of Allahabad, has been replaced by Neeraj Tripathi, son of former BJP leader Keshari Nath Tripathi.
Neeraj is an additional advocate-general of Uttar Pradesh and has had little political interaction with the constituency. Joshi was the Uttar Pradesh Congress chief before joining the BJP in 2014. She was elected the MP from Allahabad in 2019 but remained angry with the party apparently because she didn’t get a cabinet berth in the Narendra Modi government.
BJP sources said she wanted a ticket for herself as well as her son Mayank Joshi but her demands were ignored.
Neeraj Shekhar, son of former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, has replaced Virendra Singh Mast in Ballia. Mast was considered an established BJP leader with a substantial clout in the constituency. Neeraj Shekhar is currently a Rajya Sabha member. He was elected an MP from Ballia as a Samajwadi Party candidate in 2007 and 2009 but lost in 2014 to the BJP. He later joined the saffron party. Most people in the constituency believe that Neeraj Shekhar only has his father’s name to bank on.
Praveen Patel, the sitting MLA from Phulpur, has replaced sitting MP Kesri Devi Patel from the Lok Sabha constituency known by the same name. Kesri Devi wielded considerable clout over the seat but the party didn’t repeat her.
Paras Nath Rai has been pitted against sitting Bahujan Samaj Party MP Afzal Ansari in Ghazipur. There was speculation that Manoj Sinha would resign as the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir to contest from Ghazipur.
Afzal, the elder brother of gangster turned politician Mukhtar Ansari, is contesting as a Samajwadi Party candidate. Mukhtar died of cardiac arrest in Banda jail two weeks ago.
Thakur Jaiveer Singh, a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, has been fielded against Dimple Yadav in Mainpuri. Political observers consider Jaiveer as a weak choice against Dimple, the wife of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
“I am a party worker and ready to do whatever is assigned to me,” Jaiveer said.
“The BJP had to field someone from here. It is good that Jaiveer Singhji is contesting,” Dimple said.
The BJP has repeated B.P. Saroj from Machhlishahr and Vinod Sonkar from Kaushambi, a reserved seat for Scheduled Castes.
“All those who got the ticket and those who were dropped have their importance in the party. They would be assigned crucial jobs soon,” said Bhupendra Singh, Uttar Pradesh’s BJP chief.
However, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said: “The BJP leaders are refusing to contest elections because they know that the party’s defeat is inevitable this time.”
There are half a dozen seats in Uttar Pradesh on which the BJP is yet to decide its nominees.