LS Polls: Samajwadi Party replaces 2 candidates in UP

LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party (SP) has released a list of two candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, scheduled to take place in a few weeks.

The party has named Atul Pradhan from Meerut and Suresh Chandra Kadam from Agra.

Earlier, Bhanu Pratap Singh was to contest from the Meerut seat. Bhanu Pratap is a Supreme Court lawyer.

Bhanu Pratap Singh had formed his own party, the Janhit Sangharsh Party (JSP). He contested the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Bulandshahr in 2017, where he got only 1,224 votes while his deposit was confiscated.

More than a week after declaring Rahul Awana as its candidate for Lok Sabha elections in Gautam Buddha Nagar, the SP nominated Mahendra Nagar again.

The SP has so far released seven lists, announcing candidates for 48 seats. As part of a seat-sharing deal with the SP, the Congress will contest in 17 parliamentary constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.

Notably, Mahendra Nagar was on March 16 declared as the SP candidate only to be replaced by Rahul Awana on March 20.

The SP has now fielded Meera Deepak Yadav from the Khajuraho Lok Sabha constituency replacing Manoj Yadav. Meera is a former MLA from Madhya Pradesh's Niwari seat and is set to challenge the incumbent MP and Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party leader, V.D. Sharma, in the upcoming election.

The seven-phase Lok Sabha polls, the world's biggest election exercise, will commence on April 19 with the counting of votes set to take place on June 4 as Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes a bid for a third consecutive term in office.

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said more than 97 crore voters -- 49.7 crore males and 47.1 crore females -- were eligible to cast their vote in the polling process spread over 44 days and across 10.5 lakh polling booths.

The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.