UP Panchayat polls: Mulayam Singh Yadav's niece joins BJP, to contest from Ghiror

In a major development, the niece of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sandhya Yadav has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and has been given a ticket for the upcoming Panchayat elections. As per the candidate list released by the party, she has been given a ticket from Ghiror in Manipur from ward number 18. 

It is pertinent to mention here that Sandhya, who is the daughter of Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder brother Abhairam Yadav, is a former District Panchayat President from Mainpuri. She was nominated to the post by the SP in 2016, but after a family quarrel, the party moved a no-confidence motion against her, and subsequently, she was removed.

Thereafter, she seems to have approached the BJP, which at once gave her a ticket. For those unversed, Sandhya's husband Anujesh Pratap Yadav is also a BJP leader. 

Uttar Pradesh District Panchayat elections

Uttar Pradesh is all set to hold elections for gram panchayat, kshetra panchayats and zila panchayat in four phases. While the first phase will take place on April 15, the second, third and fourth phases will be held on April 19, 26 and 29 respectively. The results of the elections will be announced on May 2. 

In the first phase of the elections, 18 districts- Ghaziabad, Rampur, Hathras, Saharanpur, Bareilly, Agra, Kanpur City, Mahoba, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Raibarieli, Hardoi, Ayodhya, Shravsti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur, Jaunpur, Bhadohi will go to polls while in the second phase, 20 districts— Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Bijnor, Amroha, Badaun, Ettah, Mainpuri, Kannoj, Etawah, Lalitpur, Chitrakut, Pratapgarh, Lucknow, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sultanpur, Gonda, Maharajganj, Varanasi and Azamgarh will conduct voting.

In the third phase, 20 districts—- Shamli, Meerut, Moradabad, Pilibhit, Kasganj, Firozabad, Auraiya, Kanpur Dehat, Jalaun, Hamirpur, Fatehpur, Unnao, Amethi, Barabanki, Balrampur, Siddharth Nagar, Deoria, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Ballia will go to polls while in the fourth phase, 17 districts- Bulandshahr, Hapur, Sambhal, Shahjahanpur, Aligarh, Mathura, Farrukhabad, Banda, Kaushambi, Sitapur, Ambedkar Nagar, Bahraich, Basti, Kushinagar, Ghazipur, Sonbhadra and Mau will conduct voting. 

(Credits-PTI)