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.
After that, all the party candidates, under the leadership of Swatantra Dev Singh, left the party office for filing nomination collectively and reached the BJP Legislature Party office in Vidhan Bhawan.
Later, in the presence of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, Finance and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Khanna, all the party candidates filed their nomination papers.
A large number of ministers, MLAs and other senior leaders were present on the occasion.
In his message, the chief minister greeted all the leaders nominated for the council election.
“I wish them good luck in their future endeavours,” Yogi said.
The biennial election is being held for 13Vidhan Parishad seats. While nine nominations have been filed from the BJP 9, the main opposition party, Samajwadi Party, has fielded four candidates.
The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress have not fielded any candidate as they do not have enough numbers in the Vidhan Sabha to ensure victory of their candidates.