UP elections: BJP finalises candidates for 172 seats; CM Adityanath, his deputies likely to contest

New Delhi, Jan 13: Amid several sitting BJP MLAs quitting the party and giving a jolt ahead of polls in Uttar Pradesh, the saffron party on Thursday finalised its candidates for 172 assembly seats in the state.

Most of these seats will go for polling in the first phase and the party is likely to field both Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya who are currently members of the Legislative Council.

Talking to media at BJP headquarters, Maurya said the party held wider deliberations on the 172 assembly seats while expressing confidence in registering a bigger victory than the 2017 assembly polls.

Home Minister Amit Shah and several other leaders besides those from Uttar Pradesh, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, were part of the meeting while BJP president JP Nadda and Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, all three of whom have tested Covid-19 positive, joined the meeting via video conferencing.

The BJP is likely to drop a number of sitting MLAs to neutralise anti-incumbency at the local level

According to party sources, Adityanath, who is a five-term former Lok Sabha member from Gorakhpur and currently a member of the state's Legislative Council, is likely to contest from Ayodhya.
Maurya from Sirathu constituency and Sharma likely from one of the assembly constituencies in state capital Lucknow.

As many as 58 and 55 seats of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly will face the polls on February 10 and February 14 respectively and the BJP will announce the first list of candidates in the next few days.

The state is scheduled to have seven-phase polls. PTI