Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday (February 1) announced a list of 17 candidates for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh polls and did not include minister Swati Singh in it.
Swati Singh is a Minister of State (Independent Charge) for women welfare in Uttar Pradesh.
On not being given ticket in this Assembly election, Swati Singh said, "I am in BJP since I was 17 years old and will remain in the saffron party."
While speaking to the media today (February 2), Singh said, "I am part of BJP and will continue to remain so throughout my life. No worker should question the decision taken by the party leadership. The party must have done it for good."
Meanwhile, BJP also did not include Assembly Speaker Hriday Narain Dikshit in the candidate list while the seat of Brijesh Pathak was changed.
The names which were announced yesterday included candidates for all the nine Assembly seats in Lucknow.
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Ashutosh Shukla has been fielded from Bhagwantnagar in Unnao district where Hriday Narain Dikshit is the outgoing MLA.
Rajrejeshwar Singh, who has taken voluntary retirement after being deputed to the Enforcement Directorate from the Uttar Pradesh police, has been fielded from Sarojini Nagar, the seat of outgoing minister Swati Singh.
Both Swati Singh and her husband Daya Shankar Singh had been vying for the Sarojini Nagar seat.
Incumbent Lucknow (central) MLA and minister Brijesh Pathak has been fielded from Lucknow Cantonment, burying speculations of the new entrant in the BJP Aparna Yadav, the daughter-in-law of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, being fielded from there.
Aparna Yadav had contested from the seat in the previous elections but had faced defeat.
According to the BJP's list, state minister Ashutosh Tandon will contest from his Lucknow east seat.
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