Reposing faith on party workers and turn coats Bharatiya Janata Party declared 67 more candidates taking the total number of candidates declared so far to 370 pitting Alka Rai, wife of slain BJP leader Krishnand Rai, against Mukhtar Ansari who is charged with killing Rai. Rai was murdered on November 29, 2005, while attending a family wedding in his native villagein Ghazipur district. He had been made aware of a death threat by Special Task Force officers, who warned him of hired killers at the residence of Mukhtar Ansari, a law maker from Mohamadabad. Alka Rai had filed a case against Mukhtaar Ansari.
"Mukhtar Ansari and his family are known criminals of eastern UP. Mukhtar Ansari is also involved in my husband's (Krishnanand Rai) murder and his seven close associates," Alka Rai said. Her candidature has made the fight interesting in eastern UP where Samajwadi Party has forced Mukhtar’s Quaimi Ekta Dal to merge with SP. The list contains 14 former legislators or MPs and around half a dozen office-bearers including vice-president of the party Ram Naresh Rawat, General secretary Vinod rai, and Vidysagar Sonkar. The party has accommodated turncoats like Swami Prasad Maurya (Padrauna), RK Chaudhry (Mohanlalganj), RK Patel (Manikpur), Fateh Bahadur ((Campiarganj), Rajesh Tripathi (Chillupar), Phagu Siungh Chauahn (Ghosi) and Dinanath Bhaskar (Aurai). All of these people were ministers in Mayawati Government. Of them Phagu Singh Chauhan was earlier in BJP and was even Minister in Kalyan Singh’s cabinet but left BJP to join BSP in 2012. Recently he had joined BJP. Former legislators who have found favour with the party leadership are: Surya Bhan Singh (Sultanpur), Bajrang Bahadur (Farenda), Gyanendra Singh (Paniyara), Suresh Tiwari (Barhaj), Arun Yadav (Phulpur Pawai), SriRam Sonkar (Mohamadabad), Ram and Iqbal Singh (Rasra).
In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency of Varanasi party has dropped seven time MlA Shyamdeo rai Chaudhry from Varanasi (South) and gave ticket to Neelkanth Tiwari. Party also replaced Jyotsana Srivastava from Varanasi Cantt with saurabh Srivastava but retained Ravindra Jaiswal from Varanasi North. Party also cold shouldered Beni Prasad Verma’s request to accommodate his son Rakesh Veram in the list as it pitted Barabanki district unit president Sharad Awasthi from Ramnagar where SP has fielded cabinet minister Arvind Singh Gope.