UP polls: It’s Samsuddin Vs Adityanath as BSP releases list of 54

BSP President Mayawati during a meeting ahead of the UP elections in Saharanpur on Saturday. Pic/PTI

The BSP on Saturday released a list of 54 candidates for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, fielding Khwaja Samsuddin against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban constituency. In this latest list, the Mayawati-led party has given tickets to seven Muslim candidates.

The Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Santosh Tiwari from Fazilnagar assembly constituency in Kushinagar district. Tiwari will take on Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate and former BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya. The BSP has given tickets to Prateek Pandey from Katehari and to Chandra Prakash Verma from Akbarpur. Both constituencies fall under the Ambedkarnagar district. The 54 assembly constituencies for which the BSP announced its candidates cover Ambedkarnagar, Balrampur, Siddharthanagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria and Ballia districts.

The Congress party on Saturday released a list of as many as 30 ‘star campaigners' for the ensuing third phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. The list includes names of top party leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, Mohammed Azharuddin and others.

The list also includes names of Congress leaders like Ajay Kumar Lallu, Aradhana Misra "Mona", former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Uttar Pradesh Election observer and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and Salman Khurshid. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.

A sedition case has been registered against a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) candidate from Bijnor assembly constituency over alleged pro-Pakistan slogans during campaigning for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, police said on Saturday. According to the police, a few days ago, a video of door-to-door campaigning of RLD candidate from Bijnor Neeraj Chaudhary went viral in which some people were allegedly raising "Pakistan Zindabad" slogans.

Paid holidays for electors of UP employed in Delhi

The Delhi government on Saturday announced that polling days in UP would be paid holidays for the people from that state employed in the national capital. According to a notice by the General Administrative Department of the Delhi government, the waiver applies to every person employed in any business, trade, industrial undertaking or any other establishment in the National Capital Territory.

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