“Shri Jayant Chaudhary ji will be the joint candidate of Rajya Sabha from Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal,” said the Samajwadi Party in a tweet.
Lucknow: The president of the Rashtrtiya Lok Dal (RLD), Jayant Chaudhary, will be the joint candidate of both RLD and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, the SP announced on Thursday. RLD is an ally of the Samajwadi Party.
“Shri Jayant Chaudhary ji will be the joint candidate of Rajya Sabha from Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal,” said the Samajwadi Party in a tweet.
Meanwhile, retweeting SP’s tweet, Jayant Chaudhary said, “Will move forward with confidence.”
During the last Uttar Pradesh assembly election, it was decided that the Samajwadi Party will select Jayant Chaudhary as its Rajya Sabha candidate. In fact, the pre-poll alliance was drawn on those lines.
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Meanwhile, sources said, Akhilesh Yadav’s wife and former MP from Kannauj Dimple Yadav may be fielded by the Samajwadi Party for the Lok Sabha bypoll from the Azamgarh parliamentary seat. The bypoll for Azamgarh and Rampur parliamentary seats will be held on June 23.
Jayant Chaudhary’s selection comes a day after the Samajwadi Party had rendered its support to senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal in filing his papers for the Rajya Sabha polls as an Independent.
Kapil Sibal was among the leading members of the group called G-23 within the Congress, which since August 2020 has been asking for wide-ranging reforms such as elections to every post. In the recent interviews, Kapil Sibal had hit out at the Gandhi family, blaming them for the Congress’s poor poll performances.
Despite big names, with 273 MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the ruling BJP-led NDA will easily be able to get eight members elected to the Upper House of Parliament. Samajwadi Party and its allies, with a strength of 125, will be able to ensure the victory of three candidates. Among the 11 retiring MPs from the state, five are from the BJP, three from the SP, two from the Bahujan Samaj Party and one from the Congress.
