LUCKNOW: After trying its best to get rid of the image of being the party of Muslims and Yadavs during the recent assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party was back to its core vote bank in the Vidhan Parishad polls by fielding a large number of Yadav candidates.
Out of the names of 16 possible candidates that the party has revealed so far -- officially or unofficially -- at least 12 are Yadavs.
The party has placed its bet on youngsters with almost 50% candidates being first-timers.
On Wednesday, the party formally announced the names of six more candidates while the names of other 10 are already doing the round. The move comes a day after the SP confirmed the candidature of Dr Kafeel Khan as party candidate for the Deoria–Kushinagar seat. Many of the SP candidates filed their nomination papers on Wednesday.
The voting for the MLC polls on 36 seats under 35 local bodies (Etah, Mathura Mainpuri seat elects two candidates) of the state will be held on April 9 and counting of votes will be held on April 12. All the public representatives will vote for their respective region wise seats in these polls.
The SP list released on Wednesday includes the names of Anurag Verma (Kheri), Manoj Kumar (Jaunpur), Umesh Kumar (Varanasi), Amar Yadav (Bahraich), Vijay Bahadur Yadav (Pratapgarh) and Dileep Singh Yadav (Agra-Ferozabad). Reports said sitting MLC Sunil Singh Sajan has also been nominated as candidate from Lucknow-Unnao seat.
Names of Rajesh Yadav (Barabanki), Amit Yadav (Pilibhit–Shahjahanpur), Rajnesh Yadav (Gorakhpur–Maharajganj), Shyam Sunder Singh (Jhansi–Jalaun–Lalitpur), Santosh Yadav (Basti–Siddharthnagar), Virendra Shanker Singh (Rae Bareli), Heera Lal Yadav (Faizabad), Rajesh Kumar Yadav alias Guddu (Azamgarh–Mau) and Maqsoor Ahmed (Rampur–Bareilly).
Sources said the party has authorized almost all the 36 candidates to file their nominations and was unlikely to officially release more names.
Candidates were directed to file their nominations directly, the sources said.
