BJP declares candidate list for UP, U'khand, Punjab polls

Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday declared its second list comprising 81 candidates for Uttar Pradesh, along with candidates for 48 seats of Uttarakhand and 20 seats of Punjab for the forthcoming assembly elections in these states.

After declaring candidates for 143 seats of UP earlier, the BJP central election committee declared candidates for 81 seats of the politically crucial state. Of these six are former ministers, six are former MLAs, eight are women, 14 are from Scheduled Caste while one is from the minority community.

Daddan Mishra, who was minister in the Mayawati-led Bahuajn Samaj Party government, will contest on a BJP ticket from Bhinga while another former minister from her government, Awdhesh Verma, will contest from Dadraul.

Former Samajwadi Party MLA Arun Yadav will now be in the fray on a BJP ticket from Jalalpur.

Former ministers who are contesting on BJP ticket are: Bahoran Lal Maurya (Bhojipura), Dal Bahadur Kori (Salon-SC), Anil Tiwari (Bikapur) and Chandra Kishore (Maharajganj-SC).

Former MLAs included in the list of candidates are: Lavkush Kumar (Nagina-SC), Ramsingh (Debai), Ramsakhi Katheraiya (Iglas-SC), Shiv Singh Chak (Tundla-SC), Rajesh Yadav (Gunnaur), Dal Singh Yadav (Jalalabad) and Ashok Dubey (Etawah).

In Uttarakhand, which has a total of 70 seats, the party declared candidates for 48 seats. Of these, three are women, nine are from the Scheduled Caste, one from Scheduled Tribe and one from the minority community.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri will be in the fray from Kotdwar; ex-CM Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank will contest from Doiwala; state unit chief Bishan Singh Chuphal, who is also a sitting MLA, from Didihat; and Speaker Harbansh Kapoor from Dehradun Cantt.

Other candidates include cabinet ministers Prakash Pant (Pithoragarh), Trivendra Singh Rawat (Raipur), Matbar Singh Khandari (Rudraprayag), Madan Kaushik (Hardwar), Vijaya Barthwal (Yamkeshwar), Balwant Singh Bhoryal (Kapkot), and ex-minister Ajay Tamta (Someshwar-SC).

Sitting MLAs who are in the fray this time as well for the BJP are Harbhajan Singh Cheema (Kashipur), Surendra Jeena (Salt), Chandan Ram Das (Bageshwar-SC), Suresh Chand Jain (Roorkee) and Ganesh Joshi (Mussorie).

BJP also declared candidates for 20 of the 23 seats that it is going to contest in Punjab. The rest of the seats in a total of 117 will be contested by its main ally Shiromani Akali Dal.

Of the candidates announced on Monday, two are women while four belong to the Scheduled Caste. Four of the sitting BJP MLAs have been denied a ticket.

Satpal Gosain, who is a minister in the Parkash Singh Badal government, will contest from Ludhiana Central, while former minister Madan Mohan Mittal will be in the fray from Anandpur Sahib.

Sitting MLA who will contest on a BJP ticket are Dinesh Singh (Sujanpur), Anil Joshi (Amritsar North), Chunni Lal Bhagat (Jalandhar West-SC), Manoranjan Kalia (Jalandhar

Central), Krishna Dev Bhandari (Jalandhar North), Arunesh Shakker (Mukerian), Amarjit Singh Shahi (Dasuya), Tikshan Sood (Hoshiarpur), Sukhpal Singh Nanu (Firozpur City) and Raj Khurana (Rajpura).