2019 Lok Sabha Elections BSP candidate list: Fazlur Rahman to contest against BJP's Lakhanpal in Saharanpur

Lucknow: A day after the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) announced its candidates for 28 parliamentary constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Friday released its first list of 11 candidates for the state. The party has declared candidates on three Scheduled Caste seats of Nagina, Bulandshahr and Agra and politically crucial seats of Saharanpur and Meerut. 

While the BSP has fielded local businessman Fazlur Rahman against BJP's Raghav Lakhanpal in Saharanpur, Haji Mohammed Yaqub will contest against two-time BJP MP Rajendra Agrawal in Meerut. 

The list has come hours after BSP released a list of star campaigners that included the name of Mayawati's nephew Akash Anand. Last week, BSP alliance partner SP had released its first list of candidates for the upcoming polls. While SP patriarch Mulayam Singh will contest from Mainpuri, party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s cousins Dharmendra Yadav and Akshay Yadav will contest from Badaun and Firozabad, respectively. 

Here's the first list of Bahujan Samaj Party candidates:

Saharanpur Lok Sabha seat- Haji Fazlur Rahman
Bijnor Lok Sabha seat- Maluk Nagar
Nagina Lok Sabha seat- Girish Chandra
Amroha Lok Sabha seat- Danish Ali 
Meerut Lok Sabha seat- Haji Mohammed Yaqub
Gautam Buddh Nagar Lok Sabha seat- Satbir Nagar
Bulandshahr Lok Sabha seat- Yogesh Verma
Aligarh Lok Sabha seat- Ajith Balyan
Agra Lok Sabha seat- Manoj Kumar Saini
Fatehpur Sikri Lok Sabha seat- Rajvir Singh 
Aonla Lok Sabha seat-

The BSP has made a number of changes in its candidates from the 2014 elections. While in Amroha, BSP has denied ticket to its 2014 candidate Farhat Hasan and nominated Danish Ali to take on incumbent Kanwar Singh Tanwar, in Gautam Buddh Nagar, Satish Kumar has been replaced by Satbir Nagar. Current MP Mahesh Sharma of the BJP will contest again for the saffron party.

In Aligarh, Ajith Balyan has been given ticket instead of  Arvind Kumar Singh who had finished behind BJP's Satish Kumar Gautam, who is again set to contest from the parliamentary constituency. 

Both the BJP and BSP have changed their candidates in Agra. This time BSP's Manoj Kumar Saini will lock horns with BJP's SP Singh Baghel. Whereas in Aonla, BSP has fielded its first woman candidate for the polls, Ruchi Veera against current BJP MP Dharmendra Kumar.

In the run-up to the 2019 general elections, the BSP-SP-RLD have announced an alliance with a formula of contesting 38, 37 and 3 seats respectively. Though the Congress has not been made part of its alliance, the BSP-SP-RLD have decided to leave the Rai Bareli and Amethi seats, where UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi contests. 

In response, the Congress has announced that they will not contest on seven seats for the BSP-SP-RLD alliance including the seats from where SP patriarch Mulayam Singh, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati and RDL chief Ajit Singh will contest.