New Delhi:
In releasing the first list of 107 candidates for the Uttar Pradesh election polls, the BJP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of the Gorakhpur Urban seat and his deputy Keshav Prasad appointed Maurya of Sirathu in Prayagraj as it expressed confidence to take power retained by a large majority.
With the exception of Yogi Adityanath and Mr. Maurya, all names for 105 of the 113 seats going to the polls in the first two phases on February 10-14, with 44 of them coming from Other Backward Classes and 19 Scheduled Castes. for 60 percent of the total.
Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan told reporters the list has 63 incumbent MLAs, including ministers such as Suresh Khanna, Suresh Rana and Shrikant Sharma, while 20 have given way to others.
Former governor of Uttarakhand and now vice president of BJP Baby Rani Maurya, a Dalit, has been expelled from Agra (rural). Pankaj Singh, the son of Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, will fight again from Noida’s seat.
While there has been speculation that Adityanath would be fielded from Ayodhya, Pradhan said the party decided to throw him into the fray from Gorakhpur, his traditional political ground that he has represented for five consecutive terms in Lok Sabha.
Asked about the matter, Pradhan said the prime minister was willing to run for one of the 403 seats in the state.
This is the first time Adityanath has contested the Assembly polls.
With the Jat-centered region going to the polls in the first two phases, the farming community, which has been at the forefront of western Uttar Pradesh’s agitation against three controversial agricultural laws, has 16 seats, sources said.
Of the 43 seats from which members of the general castes have been drafted by the BJP, sources noted that 18 are Thakurs, 10 Brahmins and eight Vaishyas.
Of the 19 SC candidates on the BJP’s first list, 13 are Jatavs, who make up more than half of the total Dalit population.
The move is seen by the party as a major step towards gaining the support of a section of the community that has been a traditional base of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj party.
Some of the seats where the elections in the first two phases will take place and for which the BJP has not named candidates on Saturday will go to the allies.
Pradhan emphasized the BJP’s reach to marginalized communities and said the party has drafted a Dalit candidate from a general category seat and will name more of them from unreserved seats in the upcoming lists for the Uttar Pradesh polls.
The BJP had contested the 2017 Assembly polls on fighting corruption and restoring law and order in the state, and the Yogi Adityanath government has done so, said Pradhan, who was accompanied by BJP secretary General Arun Singh.
The state is now free from riots, he claimed, adding that much development work, including the establishment of colleges and highways, has taken place under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Uttar Pradesh is now high on the list of beneficiaries of the Modi government’s housing plan, the free gas cylinder cooking program and Ayushman Bharat, he said.
BJP President JP Nadda said every BJP employee has been working for people around the clock and the party is committed to the advancement of every section of society in the state.
“I am convinced that any BJP candidate will win by a large majority with the blessings and support of the people,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)