Samajwadi Party Releases First List Of Lok Sabha Candidates: Dimple Yadav To Contest From Mainpuri, Ex-BSP Leader Gets Ticket

Days after announcing a "good start" with Congress on 11 seats, the Samajwadi Party released a list of 16 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The list includes sitting MPs like Dimple Yadav from Manipuri and Shafiqur Rehman Barq from Sambhalpur. It also includes the runner-up candidates in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections like Akshay Yadav from Firozabad and Dharmendra Yadav from Badayun.

SP national president Akhilesh Yadav's wife had won the Mainpuri parliamentary by-polls, held in 2022 as the seat got vacated after the party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's demise.

Ramprasad Chaudhary has been given a ticket from Basti. Interestingly, he too was a runner-up in the 2019 elections but as a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate. He was then expelled by Mayawati from the party, after which he joined SP.

Ravidas Mehrotra has been given a ticket from Lucknow, from where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is the sitting BJP MP. Mehrotra was a minister in Akhilesh Yadav cabinet between 2012 and 2017.