Amidst talks with alliance partners over seat sharing, the Bharatiya Janata Party, on Thursday, announced seven candidates for the UP assembly bypolls.

Among the notable names is that of Anujesh Yadav, who has been pitted against UP’s Yadav family scion Tej Pratap Singh Yadav in Karhal.

Tej Pratap is a relative of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and son-in-law of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. He is also a former MP from Mainpuri.

Anujesh is also a member of the Yadav family of UP and is related to Akhilesh Yadav. However, he switched sides and joined the BJP along with his wife Sandhya in 2021. Sandhya is Akhilesh Yadav’s cousin and Budaun MP Dharmendra Yadav’s twin sister.

Tej Pratap’s grandfather Ratan Singh Yadav was the elder brother of Akhilesh’s father and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Karhal assembly seat was vacated by Akhilesh Yadav after he was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Kannauj constituency.

The other candidates announced by the BJP include Ramvir Singh Thakur from Kundarki, Sanjeev Sharma from Ghaziabad, Surendra Diler from Khair reserved seat, Deepak Patel from Phulpur, Dharmraj Nishad from Katehari and Suchishmita Maurya from Majhawan.

Tej Pratap has already filed his nomination papers for the Karhal bypoll on an SP ticket.

Uttar Pradesh’s Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak said: “BJP will emerge victorious in all nine (assembly) seats. People are impressed by the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and law and order, and infrastructure of Uttar Pradesh.”

The Election Commission of India announced by-elections for these nine constituencies, excluding Milkipur (Ayodhya), with the final date for filing nominations set for October 25. Counting of votes will be taken up on November 23.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has announced that his party will fight on all the nine seats under the INDIA bloc banner as Congress agreed to field its candidates on SP symbol.