UP ministers, senior BJP leaders to accompany party candidates during nomination filing for bypolls

In order to send a strong message to its rivals ahead of the crucial bypolls to 11 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, state BJP chief Swatantradev Singh, Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma and a host of ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government will accompany the party candidates during nomination filing on Monday.

Besides Singh and Sharma, minister Ashutosh Tandon and state party general secretary Vidyasagar Sonkar will be present during the filing of nominations by the BJP candidate from Lucknow Cantonment, Suresh Tiwari, a statement issued by the saffron party said on Sunday.

State ministers Surya Pratap Shahi and Ashok Kataria will be present in Saharanapur for the nomination filing for the Gangoh Assembly seat, while Swami Prasad Maurya and Mahesh Gupta will be in Rampur.

Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary and Suresh Rana will be accompanying the party candidate in Iglas (Aligarh) during filing of nominations.

Satish Mahana and Ramnaresh Agnihotri will be present with the party candidate from Govindnagar (in Kanpur).

During the filing of nominations for the Manikpur seat in Chitrakoot, Mahendra Singh and Kamla Rani Varun will be present.

Minister Shrikant Sharma will be present during the filing of nominations by the BJP candidate from the Zaidpur seat in Barabanki.

Union minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and state minister Brijesh Pathak will be present during the nomination process for the Jalalpur seat in Ambedkarnagar.

For the Balha Assembly seat in Bahraich district, ministers Mukut Bihari Verma, Jai Pratap Singh, Ramapati Shastri and Upendra Tiwari will be present.

In Pratapgarh, state minister Rajendra Pratap Singh alias Moti Singh will be present during the filing of nomination by the party candidate.

State ministers Anil Rajbhar and Dara Singh Chauhan will be present with the party candidate during the filing of nominations for the Ghosi seat in Mau district, the statement said.

Earlier in the day, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) named its bypoll candidates for 10 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh.

The names of the candidates are -- Keerat Singh (Gangoh), Bharat Bhushan Gupta (Rampur), Rajkumar Sahyogi (Iglas-SC), Suresh Tiwari (Lucknow Cantonment), Surendra Maithani (Govindnagar), Anand Shukla (Manikpur), Ambrish Rawat (Zaidpur-SC), Rajesh Singh (Jalalpur), Saroj Sonkar (Balha-SC) and Vijar Rajbhar (Ghosi).

The party is yet to declare its candidate from the Pratapgarh constituency.

Sangam Lal Gupta, the Apna Dal MLA from Pratapgarh, had successfully contested the Lok Sabha polls held in April-May from the Pratapgarh parliamentary constituency on a BJP ticket.

The Election Commission last week announced that polling for 11 Assembly seats in the state, mostly belonging to MLAs who won the Lok Sabha election and resigned as members of the state Assembly, will be held on October 21.

The Ghosi Assembly seat fell vacant following the resignation of MLA Phagu Chauhan, after he was appointed as the governor of Bihar.