After much delay BJP announced names of 10 assembly and one lok Sabha candidates on Tuesday going to by-elections in Uttar Pradesh on September 13.
Prem Pal Singh Shakya has been nominated candidate for the Mainpuri lok Sabha seat vacatedby Samajwadi Party supreme Mulayam Singh Yadav. He had won from Azamgarh and Mainpuri. He retained Azamgarh and vacated Mainpuri, considered a party bastion from where he had won five times.
Eleven assembly seats are going to polls in the by-elections. All these seats were vacated after their incumbents won lok Sabha elections. BJP has fielded candidates in 10 seats but has left Rohaniya seat for its partner Apna Dal.
According to BJP spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak here the candidates are: Rajeev Gumber from Saharanpur sadar seat, Hemendra Pal Singh from Bijnore seat, Rajpal Chauhan from Thakurdwara seat, Vimla Batham from Noida seat, Ram Kumar Verma from Nighasan seat, Gopal Tandon from lucknow east seat, Jagdish Vyas from Hamirpur seat, Geeta Singh from Charkhari seat, Santosh Patel from Sirathu seat and Akshaywar lal Gaur from Balha seat.
Gopal Tandon, candidate from lucknow east seat, is the son of senior BJP leader lalji Tandon. He had also contested 2012 assembly election from lucknow ( north) seat but lost to rookie Abhishek Mishra, who was also made minister in the state government.
Wednesday is the last date for filing of the nominations in the by-elections. The polling is scheduled on September 13 and counting of votes to be taken up on September 16.