Uttar Pradesh local body elections: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday (April 23) declared mayoral nominees for seven urban local bodies ahead of next month's elections. BJP has announced the candidature of Girishpati Tripathi for Ayodhya mayoral poll, Pramila Pandey from Kanpur, Harikant Ahluwalia from Meerut, Sunita Dayal from Ghaziabad, Prashant Singhal from Aligarh, Umesh Gautam from Bareilly and Archana Verma from Shahjahanpur.
BJP dropped Prayagraj mayor
Earlier, the BJP had dropped Uttar Pradesh minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi's wife and Prayagraj mayor from its list of candidates as it declared mayoral nominees for 10 urban local bodies ahead of next month's elections. The BJP has fielded Umesh Chandra Kesarwani in place of Nandi's wife Abhilasha Nandi.
The list was released by the party's Uttar Pradesh unit chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary. Sushma Kharakwal, a BJP state executive member, has been nominated from Lucknow while Manglesh Srivastava has been fielded from Gorakhpur and Ashok Tiwari from Varanasi.
Vinod Agarwal has been nominated from Moradabad, Kamini Rathore from Firozabad, Hemlata Diwakar from Agra, Ajay Kumar from Saharanpur, Vinod Kumar Agarwal from Mathura-Vrindavan and Bihari Lal Arya from Jhansi, according to the list.
Media co-incharge of the UP BJP, Abhay Singh said senior party leaders will flag off the party's 'vikas rath yatra' on Monday from different cities of the state as part of campaigning for the ongoing urban local body election.
Samajwadi Party's mayoral candidate from Shahjahanpur joins BJP
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party's mayoral candidate from Shahjahanpur, Archana Verma today joined the BJP in the presence of senior party leaders, including Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak. Barely hours after she joined the party, the BJP declared her as its mayoral candidate from Shahjahanpur, news agency PTI reported.
Welcoming Verma into the party fold, Pathak earlier said, "The Samajwadi Party (SP) had declared Archana Verma as its mayoral candidate from Shahjahanpur in the upcoming urban local bodies elections. However, she was finding it difficult to associate herself with the party (SP).
"She was pained by the atrocities committed on women during the SP regime. When the SP declared her as its (mayoral) candidate, she decided to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the call of nationalism given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that those who want to work in a dedicated manner for Mother India, and establish a stronger rule of law in UP, should join the saffron party," he said.
Pathak said Verma's father-in-law Ram Murti Singh Verma was a four-time MLA (thrice from Jalalabad assembly constituency of Shahjahanpur, and once from Dadraul constituency).
He was also a one-time MP of Shahjahanpur (1996), the minister said.
Uttar Pradesh local body elections
Voting for the urban local body polls is scheduled for May 4 and 11. The 37 districts of Saharanpur, Moradabad, Agra, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Devipatan, Gorakhpur and Varanasi divisions would go to polls in the first phase. Meerut, Bareilly, Aligarh, Kanpur, Ayodhya, Shahjahanpur and Ghaziabad will also go to polls on May 11. Counting of votes will take place on May 13.
The election would be held for 17 seats of mayor, 1,420 seats of corporator, 199 seats of nagar palika parishad chairperson, 5,327 of nagar palika parishad member, 544 of nagar panchayat chairperson and 7,178 seats of nagar panchayat member. The politically crucial northern state sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
