Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Monday changed its candidate from the Jaunpur Lok Sabha seat on the last day of nomination for the sixth phase after replacing former MP Dhananjay Singh’s wife Shrikala Dhananjay Singh with sitting MP from Jaunpur, Shyam Singh Yadav.
Shrikala was announced as the BSP candidate on April 16.
Notably, Monday is the last date of nominations for the sixth phase of polling to be held in Jaunpur on May 25.
Shyam will be filing his nomination from Jaunpur as a BSP candidate on Monday.
BSP Jaunpur president Sangram Bharati confirmed the development while speaking to local media persons in Jaunpur.
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The change of candidate name comes at a time when Shrikala filed her nomination on May 1 and campaigned in the area.
Earlier, the BSP had given a ticket to Shrikala when Dhananjay Singh’s plan to contest from Jaunpur on Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket didn’t materialise after he was sentenced to seven years jail term on March 6 in the extortion and kidnapping case of a Namami Gange project manager, Abhinav Singhal in 2020.
According to people aware of the matter, Dhananjay Singh had made it difficult for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Kripa Shankar Singh by fielding his wife from BSP and made victory easier for the SP candidate, Babu Singh Kushwaha, a former minister in the BSP government.
However, the last-minute change by the BSP has made things easier for Kripa Shankar.
Interestingly, both Singh and Kushwaha have played mentorship roles in Dhananjay’s political journey.
Kripa Shankar, who quit the Congress in 2019 and joined BJP in 2021, is said to have provided patronage to Dhananjay during his initial days while Kushwaha helped him to get an MP ticket from BSP.
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