The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) announced its candidate list for the Lok Sabha elections 2024, fielding Athar Jamal Lari from Varanasi against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party also replaced its candidate in Mainpuri, replacing Gulshan Dev Shakya with Shiv Prasad Yadav,
In Jaunpur, the party has fielded Srikala Singh, the wife of former MP Dhananjay Singh. The move came as a surprise as party supremo Mayawati expelled Singh from the party.
Singh served as an MP in the 15th Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014 as a BSP member, and is described as 'Purvanchal Bahubali'. In 2011, BSP president Mayawati expelled him from the party on charges of anti-party activities.
Now facing seven years of imprisonment in the 2020 kidnapping and extortion of Namami Gange project manager Abhinav Singhal, Singh is currently with Janata Dal (United) and was reportedly preparing to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Jaunpur when the conviction made him ineligible under the Representation of the People Act.
Singh served as an MP in the 15th Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014 as a Bahujan Samaj Party member, and is described as 'Purvanchal Bahubali'.
The other candidates in the fray include Samajwadi Party's Babu Singh Kushwaha while BJP has fielded Kripashankar Singh, a former Minister in the Congress-led government in Maharashtra. Kripashankar was however born in Jaunpur.
Meanwhile, the BSP also changed its candidate from Mainpuri, replacing Gulshan Dev Shakya with Shiv Prasad Yadav, who will be up against the Samajwadi Party's Dimple Yadav and the BJP's Jaiveer Singh, a state government minister.
The BSP named Athar Jamal Lari from the high-profile Varanasi seat, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting as a BJP candidate.
While Muslim Khan will contest from the Budaun seat, Chhotey Lal Gangwar is the candidate from Bareilly. Udayraj Verma from Sultanpur, Kranti Pandey from Farrukhabad. Mayank Dwivedi will be the BSP nominee from Banda, Khwaja Samsuddin from Domariyaganj, Lalan Singh Yadav from Ballia and Umesh Kumar Singh from Ghazipur.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BSP contested the polls along with the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). The BJP had won 62 seats and its ally Apna Dal (S) two seats, brushing aside the challenge of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance. However, the BSP was the biggest gainer in the alliance with 10 seats.
Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) won five seats while the RLD could not open its account in the polls. The Congress won the lone Rae Bareli seat from where Sonia Gandhi had contested.
