LS Polls: SP announces names of 16 candidates, Dimple to contest from Mainpuri

NEW DELHI: The Samajwadi Party (SP) has announced the names of 16 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, to take place in this year.

The SP has fielded Dimple Yadav, wife of former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav from Mainpuri and Shafiqur Rahman Barq from Sambhal and Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow.

Dimple Yadav of the Samajwadi Party won the Mainpuri parliamentary byelection in December 2022, defeating Raghuraj Singh Shakya of the BJP by a margin of 2,88,461 votes.

Considered as SP's bastion, the seat was held by party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and it got vacated after his death on October 10.

Akshay Yadav has been fielded from Firozabad, while from Banda, the SP has fielded Shivshakar Singh Patel.

Barq who at 93 is one of the oldest Parliamentarians has been elected 5 times to the Lok Sabha from Sambhal.

"Hoga PDA ke naam, abki ekjut matdan," the SP said.

In the current Lok Sabha, the SP, that had fought in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2019, has three MPs while BSP has 10 MPs. Sonia Gandhi, who represents the Rae Bareli seat, is the lone Congress MP from the State.

On January 19, the SP and RLD had announced their alliance for the Lok Sabha election, with SP leaving seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh for the RLD.

The SP has offered 11 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh to the Congress.

Samajwadi Party (SP) president and former U.P. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Saturday said that their "alliance" is off to a good start in the State.

Both the Congress and the SP are members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), formed to take on the BJP-led Centre.

"Our cordial alliance with the Congress is off to a good start with 11 strong seats. This trend will move forward with the winning equation. 'INDIA' team and 'PDA' (Picchda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) strategy will change history," Yadav said in a post on X.