Battle lines drawn for UP bypolls: BJP's candidate list out, Anujesh Yadav to take on Tej Pratap in Karhal; Full list

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday announced candidates for seven of the nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh where bypolls are scheduled to take place on November 13. The bypolls were necessitated after nine MLAs vacated their seats following their election to the Lok Sabha, while one bypoll is being held due to the disqualification of an MLA.

The BJP has fielded Ramvir Singh Thakur from Kundarki, Sanjeev Sharma from Ghaziabad, Surendra Diler from Khair (SC), and Anujesh Yadav from Karhal. Yadav will face a contest from Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Tej Pratap Yadav. The SP has never lost Karhal since 1993. Former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav won the seat in 2022. 

For the Phulpur seat, the BJP has nominated Deepak Patel, a former MLA whose mother has represented the Phulpur Lok Sabha constituency in the past. The SP has fielded Mustafa Siddiqui from the same seat. 

Dharmraj Nishad will contest from Katehari on a BJP ticket, while Suchismita Maurya has been nominated for Majhawan. Suresh Awasthi is the BJP's candidate from Sishamau. 

The opposition Samajwadi Party has announced that it will contest all nine seats with the support of its INDIA bloc allies. Earlier this month, the SP declared candidates for six seats. The party has nominated Naseem Solanki from Sisamau, Ajit Prasad from Milkipur, Shobhawati Verma from Katehari, and Jyoti Bind from Majhawan.  

Naseem Solanki is the wife of jailed SP leader Irfan Solanki, whose disqualification led to the Sisamau bypoll. Ajit Prasad is the son of Faizabad (Ayodhya) MP Awadhesh Prasad, while Shobhawati Verma is married to SP MP Lalji Verma. Jyoti Bind is the daughter of Ramesh Bind, who contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Mirzapur but lost to Apna Dal (S) leader Anupriya Patel.  

The SP has also fielded Singh Raj Jatav from Ghaziabad and Charu Kain from Khair. 

By-elections are being held for 9 seats: Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur city), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj), and Kundarki (Moradabad).  

In the 2022 assembly elections, the SP had won five of these seats — Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal, Milkipur, and Kundarki. The BJP had secured victories in Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, and Khair. The Meerapur seat was won by the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which was then allied with the SP.