A day after declaration of assembly poll results of Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday announced candidates for six of the 10 Uttar Pradesh assembly seats where bypolls are due later this year.
Reacting to the list, BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said it is the effect of Haryana election results, with the SP "telling Congress its place" by declaring candidates on the seats claimed by the latter.
The SP, which is a part of the INDIA bloc, has said it will contest the bypolls with the Congress, which is demanding five seats from the party.
The Congress did not share any seat with the SP in the just-concluded Haryana assembly elections in which the BJP stunned with a victory third time in a row, pocketing 48 of the 90 seats.
The SP has fielded Tej Pratap Yadav from Karhal, while it has given a ticket to Naseem Solanki from the Sisamu seat, Mustafa Siddiqui from Phulpur (Prayagraj), and Ajit Prasad from Milkipur (Ayodhya), according to the party's list issued here.
Shobhawai Verma and Jyodi Bind have been given party tickets from Katehari and Majhwan seats, respectively, it stated.
Among the SP candidates, Naseem Solanki is wife of jailed party leader Irfan Solanki, while Shobhawati Verma is wife of party MP Lalji Verma and Ajit Prasad is son of Faizabad (Ayodhya) MP Awadhesh Prasad.
Jyoti Bind is daughter of party leader Ramesh Bind, who lost to Apna Dal (S) candidate Anupriya Patel in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls from Mirzapur.
By-elections are set to be held in 10 assembly seats of the state -- Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur city), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj) and Kundarki (Moradabad).
The official date for polls is yet to be announced by the Election Commission.
Nine of these seats fell vacant after its MLAs were elected as MPs in the Lok Sabha polls, while in Sisamau, the bypoll is being held due to the disqualification of SP MLA Irfan Solanki, who was convicted in a criminal case.
Earlier on Sunday, Congress's Uttar Pradesh unit president Ajay Rai told PTI that the state wing has given a proposal to its leadership to contest on five of the 10 bypoll-bound assembly seats in the state.
"We have given a proposal to contest on five assembly seats -- Majhwa (Mirzapur), Phulpur (Allahabad), Ghaziabad, Khair (Aligarh) and Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar) to our leadership. These seats are those, where BJP candidates had won," Rai had said.
Asked about the bypoll ticket distribution, Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary on Wednesday said the seat sharing with Congress will be decided by his party's national president, Akhilesh Yadav.
Meanwhile, buoyed by the Haryana poll results, the BJP here took a dig at the announcement of SP candidates for the by-elections.
BJP spokesperson Tripathi said that the SP-Congress alliance is in a state of "disarray".
"SP's list is the effect of Haryana election results, SP declared candidates on the seats claimed by Congress and told Congress its place. Haryana results have boosted the morale of BJP workers, BJP alliance will win all the seats in the by-elections," Tripathi claimed.
In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal, Milkipur and Kundarki were held by the SP, while the BJP had won the last polls in Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan and Kahir. The Meerapur seat was won by the RLD, which was then an ally of the SP.
