AAP names Shweta Sharma as Gautam Buddh Nagar LS nominee

The Aam Aadmi Party Sunday announced nominating Shweta Sharma for the Lok Sabha election from Gautam Buddh Nagar, where she will be pitted against BJP leader Mahesh Sharma, among others.

Shweta Sharma is a professor with an MBA in Human Resources, an M.Phil, UGC-NET and pursuing PhD, the AAP said.

"She is working to remove corruption in education and other irregularities," the party's Uttar Pradesh unit tweeted.

Union minister and sitting MP Mahesh Sharma had won the seat in 2014 after a stint as Noida MLA when he secured 5,99,702 votes, 50 per cent of the total votes polled that year in Gautam Buddh Nagar.

On March 22, Mahesh Sharma filed his nomination as the BJP's Lok Sabha candidate, on the same day Arvind Kumar Singh from the Congress and Satveer Nagar as the joint nominee of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party completed the formalities.

In 2014, the AAP had fielded Kishan Pal Singh as its candidate from this seat and he ended up winning 32,358 votes, a 2.70 per cent share of the total votes polled that year. He had stood fourth after Sharma, SP's Narendra Bhati (3,19,490) and BSP's Satish Kumar (1,98,237) among 25 candidates, including Independents.

Gautam Buddh Nagar constituency has over 22 lakh voters across Noida, Dadri, Jewar, Khurja and Sikandrabad assembly segments and goes to voting on April 11 during the first leg of the seven-phase elections.

Khurja and Sikandrabad although geographically fall in adjoining Bulandshahr district.