Congress announced a dozen more of it’s candidates for Parliament elections from Uttar Pradesh including important seats of lucknow and Ghaziabad. The Party also changed one of it’s candidates Dayanand Gupta, from Meerut Parliament constituency giving ticket to popular Bollywood actress, Nagma. With dozen more names, now the Congress already announced names of 62 candidates from UP.
Interestingly, the Party yet not disclosed it’s nominee from Varanasi, from where Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is likely to contest though he was facing stiff opposition from sitting MP, Murli Manohar Joshi, who is not ready to change his constituency. From Congress, Ajai Rai’s name tops the names of aspirants from Varanasi.
In the list of 71 candidate announced by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) office on Thursday, Congress declared a dozen seats from UP. From Ghaziabad Parliament seat, the Party had fielded it’s star contestant, Raj Babbar, who won last time from Ferojabad seat defeating Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav in bi-election. However, this time Raj Babbar had made it clear to change his constituency following which he has been now fielded from Ghaziabad. The Party also cleared the candidature of former state president, Rita Bahuguna Joshi from lucknow, who remained runners-up during last election.
Noor Banu, whose son Kazim Ali, already a MlA got ticket in her place from Rampur, has been this time fielded from Moradabad Parliament seat. Sitting MP from Moradabad, Azharudeen, already made it clear that he will not contest this time from UP. Two more MlAs, lalitesh Pati Tripathi and Mukesh Srivastava, got tickets from Mirjapur and Kaiserganj Parliament seats respectively. Domriyaganj, from where sitting Congress MP, Jagdambika Pal, had already left the Party to contest on some other Party’s ticket, Party fielded youth Congress leader, Tarun Patel.
From Sant Kabir Nagar and Ambedkarnagar, where allegations of large scale irregularities have been made and even Union Minister for Steel, Beni Prasad Verma, termed it as `auction’ of tickets but Rahul Gandhi cleared both Rohit Pandey and Ashok Singh’s name respectively as they won during the internal elections. From Gautambudhnagar, Congress fielded Ramesh Chand Tomar, while from Etawah reserve seat, Smt Hansmukhi Sankhwar will be the official nominee of the Party. From two other Kaushambhi and Machlisaher reserved constituencies, Mahendra Gautam and Tufani Nishad, would contest on Congress ticket.