In a major setback to the Bhartiya Janta Party on Wednesday, its outgoing MP from Hardoi Anshul Verma shifted loyalties to Samajwadi Party after his name was dropped by the party for the next month Lok Sabha Polls.
BJP in a run-to to the national elections has replaced Verma with Jai Prakash Rawat for the reserved seat of Hardoi, around 100 km from State Capital, Lucknow. BJP new pick Rawat is a two-time parliamentarian from this seat in the 1990s, however, he later joined Samajwadi Party and won from a different seat. Rawat had in 2018 recently shifted back his loyalties to BJP.
READ: Check Out Full list of BJP Candidates for Lok Sabha Polls 2019
Anshul Verma, BJP's sitting MP from Hardoi, joins Samajwadi Party (SP) in presence of party president Akhilesh Yadav pic.twitter.com/o97klVRn1G
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) March 27, 2019
While Anshul Verma had in 2014 General elections won the seat with over 90,000 votes by defeating BSP’s Shive Prasad Verma.
BJP Outgoing MP Verma joined Samajwadi Party in presence of SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav hours after resigning from the primary membership of the saffron party. “It was because of me that the party won from Hardoi in 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, after a long gap of 21 years,” Verma wrote in his resignation letter.
However, SP who has already declared its candidate for Hardoi Lok Sabha Seat has not yet declared from where Verma will be in the electoral fray.
Verma’s addition to the Samajwadi Party came days after BJP sitting MP from Allahabad now known as Prayagraj Shyama Charan Gupta shifted loyalties back to Samajwadi Party. Samajwadi Party has nominated Shyama Charan Gupta from Banda Parliamentary Seat.
Samajwadi Party who has entered into an alliance with BSP and other small parties has so far declared candidates on 21 Lok Sabha out of 37 seats allotted to it in alliance with BSP.
In the first list, its founder Mulayam Singh Yadav has been fielded from Mainpuri parliamentary seat. While in the Second list, the party has fielded Dimple Yadav, wife of Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav stronghold Kannauj Lok Sabha Seat. The party has announced that it’s Chief Akhilesh Yadav will Contest from Azamgarh, while Party Staunch Leader Azam Khan from Rampur Lok Sabha Seat, among others
Both BSP-SP has started rolling out names of Candidates for the mega battle of ballots for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2019.
80 seats of the state will go to polls in all seven phases starting from April 11 till May 19.
Counting of votes will take place on May 23, four days after the final round of Polling.
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