UP Assembly polls: SP declares Pawan Pandey as candidate from Ayodhya

The Samajwadi Party declared Pawan Pandey as its candidate from the Ayodhya assembly constituency for the upcoming elections in the state.

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The Samajwadi Party on Tuesday declared Pawan Pandey as its candidate from the Ayodhya assembly constituency for the upcoming elections in the state.

Tej Narayan Pandey alias Pawan Pandey was a minister in the council of ministers headed by Akhilesh Yadav in the SP government from 2012 to 2017, and had won from Ayodhya assembly constituency.

However, in the 2017 assembly elections, he had lost to BJP's Vedprakash Gupta from the same seat.

The SP has also given a ticket to Madhuri Verma, who had crossed over from the BJP, and she will be contesting from Nanpara in Bahraich.

Former UP minister Yasar Shah has been named as the SP candidate from Bahraich, while former legislator Mukesh Srivastava will be party's candidate from Payagpur assembly constituency in Bahraich.

Yasar Shah is currently an SP MLA from Matera assembly constituency in Bahraich.

The party has also named Gulshan Yadav as its candidate from Kunda assembly constituency in Pratapgarh district.

Kunda is the stronghold of 6-time independent MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya. In 2017 and 2012, the SP had not fielded any candidate from Kunda.

The party has repeated its sitting MLA Ujjwal Raman Singh, son of party stalwart Revti Raman Singh),from Karchhana in Prayagraj district, while Hakim Chand Bind, who had crossed over from the BSP, has been made the party candidate from Handia in Prayagraj.

Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases between February 10 and March 7 and the results will be announced on March 10.