BJP releases List Of Candidates For 1st, 2nd Phase; Adityanath To Contest From Gorakhpur

New Delhi: Ahead of the much-anticipated assembly elections, Bharatiya Janata Party has released the first list of candidates for the Uttar Pradesh elections. The list was released by union minister Dharmendra Pradhan and party's national general secretary Arun Singh at the press conference in New Delhi.

As per the announcement, current Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be once again contesting from Gorakhpur assembly seat whereas Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya will be contesting from Sirathu assembly seat. A total of 57 names have been announced for the first phase of elections, scheduled for February 10 and 48 names for the 2nd phase of the state elections which is scheduled for February 14.

The announcement also stated that the BJP Central Election Committee meeting, chaired by party President J.P Nadda, concluded on January 13, and the meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Apart from Yogi Aditynath, the other BJP contestants are Mriganka Singh from Kairana seat, Suresh Rana from Thana Bhawan, Tejendra Singh Nirwal from Shamli, Umesh Malik from Budhana, Sapna Kashyap from Charthawal, Pramod Utwal from Purqazi, Kapil Dev Aggarwal from Muzaffarnagar, Prashant Gurjar from Meerapur, among others. BJP leader Sangeet Som will once again be contesting from Sardhana assembly seat.

In a tweet issued by the BJP President earlier today, he congratulated all the selected candidates whose names have been declared today for the first and second phase of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

"BJP is committed for the development and welfare of every section of Uttar Pradesh. I have full faith that with the blessings and support of the people, all the BJP candidates will win with a thumping majority," Nadda said in a tweet shortly after the announcement.

The initial list holds name of 10 women candidate; however, no Muslim has been given ticket as of now. The list also includes names of prominent faces such as Shrikant Sharma, who has been retained from Mathura, Mriganka Singh from Kairana, Pankaj Singh (son of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh) from Noida.

Voting for the U.P elections will be conducted in seven phases starting from February 10 to March 10. With a total of 1,74,351 polling stations, more than 15 crore voters are expected to cast their vote this year in the state's assembly elections.