BSP to go solo in UP Assembly bypolls; names candidates for 12 seats

The Bahujan Samaj Party will go it alone in all the 13 Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh where bye-elections are to be held as the party on Wednesday announced its candidates for the 12 seats.

The candidate for Gangoh seat will be declared later, the BSP said.

The candidates are: Naushad Ali (Hamirpur seat), Zubair Masood Khan (Rampur Sadar), Abhay Kumar (Iglas), Ramesh Chandra (Balha), Sunil Kumar Chittaurh (Tundla), Arun Dwivedi (Lucknow Cantt), Devi Prasad Tiwari (Govind Nagar), Rajnarain (Manikpur), Ranjit Singh Patel (Pratapgarh Sadar), Akhilesh Kumar Ambedkar (Jaidpur), Rakesh Pandey (Jalalpur), Abdul Quayum (Ghosi).

Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha in May.

Hamirpur will go to polls on September 23, while the Election Commission is yet to announce the election schedule for other seats.

The BSP had tied up with the SP in the Lok Sabha polls, but soon after the results were out, BSP supremo Mayawati had announced parting of ways and decided to go solo, following which SP chief Akhilesh Yadav too said his party will contest on its own.