BREAKING: BSP Announces Fresh List of Candidates, Challenges Samajwadi Party in Mainpuri, Budaun

New Delhi: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) released a fresh list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday, April 16. The Bahujan Samaj Party has challenged the Samajwadi Party, with whom it contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in its bastions like- Mainpuri and Budaun. 

The Bahujan Samaj Party has announced candidates for 11 Lok Sabha seats including Mainpuri, Budaun, Barelli, Sultanpur, Jaunpur and Varanasi. Mayawati's party is contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone this time and not as the part of Opposition's INDI bloc. BSP fielded Srikala Singh, the wife of former MP Dhananjay Singh who was sentenced to seven years in jail last month in a 2020 case from Jaunpur Lok Sabha seat. 

The BSP named Athar Jamal Lari from the high-profile Varanasi seat, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting as a BJP candidate. 

BSP challenges Samajwadi Party in its bastions 

The Mayawati-led party also changed its candidate from Mainpuri, replacing Gulshan Dev Shakya with Shiv Prasad Yadav, who will be up against the Samajwadi Party's candidate and Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav and the BJP's Jaiveer Singh, a state government minister. Further, in Shivpal Yadav's bastion Budaun, BSP has fielded Muslim Khan. This time, Shivpal Yadav's son Aditya Yadav is contesting on a Samajwadi Party ticket. 

This time Mayawati has openly challenged the Samajwadi Party with party's candidate pick. Earlier, BSP had fielded former state president of the party Bhim Rajbhar from Azamgarh, from where Akhilesh Yadav was the sitting MP who later resigned following victory in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2022. 

According to the fresh list, Chhotey Lal Gangwar from Bareilly, Udayraj Verma from Sultanpur, Kranti Pandey from Farrukhabad. Mayank Dwivedi will be the BSP nominee from Banda, Khwaja Samsuddin from Domariyaganj, Lalan Singh Yadav from Ballia and Umesh Kumar Singh from Ghazipur.

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