Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], September 30 (ANI): Samajwadi Party candidates Professor Ram Gopal Yadav and Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani on Wednesday filed their nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav accompanied the two candidates during the nomination filing as the party formally entered the contest for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections. The party had earlier announced Ram Gopal Yadav and Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani as its two nominees from Uttar Pradesh..
Ahead of the nomination filing, Uttar Pradesh Minister and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar took a dig at the SP’s candidate selection and questioned whether the nominees represented the party’s PDA (Pichhada, Dalit, Alpashankhyak) formulation.
In a post on X, Rajbhar said, “Akhilesh ji, I’ve heard you’re going to field three candidates for the Rajya Sabha. Tell me, will all three be from your ‘PDA’ or not?”
Rajbhar also cautioned the SP against attempting to secure a third seat, saying it should not risk losing its second seat in the process.
The Election Commission had earlier announced that polling for 11 Rajya Sabha seats, including 10 from Uttar Pradesh and one from Uttarakhand, will be held on October 16. The terms of the sitting members from the two states are scheduled to expire on November 25.
The nomination process for the biennial elections is underway, with candidates required to complete the filing process within the schedule announced by the Election Commission.
The SP’s nomination exercise comes amid the party’s continuing criticism of the Election Commission over electoral processes.
Earlier, Akhilesh Yadav had alleged that votes of SP supporters were deliberately deleted during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. He claimed that voters who had exercised their franchise in 2019 were denied the opportunity to vote in 2022 without notice or adherence to rules.
“When the results came out in 2022, I remember stating at our national convention that the Election Commission and officials had colluded to deliberately delete the votes of the Samajwadi Party,” Yadav had said.
The BJP had won 255 of the 403 Assembly seats in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections and formed the government under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. (ANI)