The Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday announced 16 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls 2024. The party fielded Dimple Yadav from the Mainpuri constituency for the polls. The other prominent candidates are Dharmendra Yadav from Badaun, Akshay Yadav from Firozabad and Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow.
List of all 16 candidates:
Dimple Yadav (Mainpuri), Akshay Yadav (Firozabad), Dharmendra Yadav (Badaun), Shafiqur Rahman Barq (Sambhal), Devesh Shakya (Etah), Utkarsh Verma (Kheri), Anand Bhadoria (Dhaurahra), Annu Tandon (Unnao), Ravidas Mehrotra (Lukcnow), Dr Naval Kishore Shakya (Farrukhabad), Raja Ram Pal (Akbarpur), Shivshankar Singh Patel (Banda), Awadhesh Prasad (Faizabad), Kajal Nishad (Gorakhpur), Lalji Verma (Ambedkar Nagar) and Ram Prasad Chaudhary (Basti).
Congress not happy with SP's candidate list
According to the sources, UP Congress is not happy with the SP's candidate list as it includes Farrukhabad and Dhaurara constituencies which the grand old party considers as its strong bastion. Farrukhabad has been the traditional seat of senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid.
Akhilesh Yadav's alliance model to counter BJP
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Samajwadi Party party chief Akhilesh Yadav has presented an alliance model to counter the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections. The statement came after JDU president Nitish Kumar resigned as the Chief Minister of Bihar dumping I.N.D.I.A bloc.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Ameeq Jamei said, "The upcoming elections are for saving our secular democracy. Our party leader Akhilesh Yadav has presented a model by announcing seat-sharing with the Congress and the RLD."
"A second round of talks with the Congress is on. Everyone should follow this to remove the BJP (from power)," he said.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Surendra Rajput alleged that the BJP and a "big section of the media" were trying to show that the I.N.D.I.A grouping was broken and weak. "In the coming days, you will see the INDIA bloc getting stronger irrespective of what is happening in Bihar," he added.
SP chief Yadav on Saturday announced that his party's alliance with the Congress was "off to a good start" with 11 "strong" Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. Soon after, the Congress said constructive seat-sharing talks were on between senior party leader Ashok Gehlot and SP chief Yadav, but it added that a formula was yet to be finalised.
