The BJP on Monday announced names of Bhojpuri film star Ravi Kishan from the Gorakhpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. The party also nominated Praveen Nishad, son of Nishad Party founder Sanjay Nishad, who dumped the SP to come the BJP fold, from Sant Kabir Nagar.

The BJP dropped sitting party MP from Sant Kabir Nagar,  Sharad Tripathi, who had recently beaten a local party  MLA with shoes in a meeting, and allotted his ticket to Praveen Nishad.

Praveen had won Gorkahpur, a seat held by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for over two decades, in the famous   by-election in 2018 on the SP ticket with the backing of the BSP. Yogi had vacated the seat after taking over as UP Chief Minister.  The victories  in three by-elections — Gorakhpur, Phulpur, Kairana — had laid the foundation of  the SP-BSP-RLD  alliance in UP against the BJP.

Kishan, whose name figured in the list of seven Lok Sabha nominees from Gorakhpur, is the second Bhojpuri popular actor-singer to be picked by BJP after it fielded Bhojpuri singer-actor Dinesh Lal Yadav “Niruha” from Azamgarh against SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. 

 ‘Niruha’ had earlier campaigned for the SP and crossed over to the BJP in the nick of the time.

Kishan, who will now contest  as a  BJP candidate from Gorakhpur, is also a turncoat having contested from Jaunpur in 2014 on a Congress ticket.

Interestingly, the BJP’s Delhi unit president Manoj Tiwari, again  a famous ‘Bhojpuri’ actor-singer, had also contested on the SP ticket in 2009 from Gorakhpur and lost to none other than the incumbent Chief Minister himself. Tiwari, an MP from North-East Delhi,  joined BJP in 2013 and made Delhi unit President in November , 2016, by BJP president Amit Shah.

BJP released seven more candidates for UP which apart from declaring Kishan from Gorakhpur and  Praveen Nishad from Sant Kabir Nagar also announced names of Sangam Lal Gupta from Pratapgarh,  Mukut Bihari from Ambedkar Nagar, K P Singh from Jaunpur, Ramesh Bhind from Bhadohi and Ramapati Ram Tripathi from Deoria.

Ramapati Ram Tripathi is father of  Shard Tripathi  who has been denied ticket  from Sant Kabir Nagar after a video went viral showing him beating BJP MLA Rakesh Baghel with a shoe objecting that his name was not on the foundation stone of a road.  His father, now a candidate from Deoria, was BJP’s UP unit president.

With seven more LS candidates decided, the BJP  has announced  candidates for 420 Lok Sabha seats for the seven-phase poll that commenced from  April 11 and continue till May 19. Results would be announced on May 23.