All nine candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party, including seven ministers, filed their nomination papers in the presence of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, party state president Swatantra Dev Singh, and Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak.
The BJP candidates for the UP Legislative Council polls include Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, Bhupendra Chaudhary, Dayashankar Mishra Dayalu, JPS Rathore, Jaswant Saini, Danish Azad Ansari, Banwarilal Dohre, Mukesh Sharma and Narendra Kashyap.
Barring former MLA Banwarilal Dohre and BJP city unit president Mukesh Sharma, the other seven are ministers in the Yogi Adityanath council of ministers. Out of them Keshav Prasad Maurya had contested the assembly election from Sirathu but lost to Pallavi Patel of Apna Dal (Kamerawadi).
Before filing their nomination papers, all these leaders reached the BJP office here on Thursday morning and met party state president Swatantra Dev Singh, state general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal and other party functionaries.
In the Kushabhau Thackeray auditorium of the BJP state headquarters, the party state president greeted all the candidates and felicitated them with the party's scarf. State general secretary Govind Narayan Shukla, Amarpal Maurya, media in-charge Manish Dixit and other senior office-bearers and a large number of workers were also present on this occasion.