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U.P. Assembly elections 2022 | BJP names 107 candidates, fields Adityanath from Gorakhpur

The BJP on Saturday declared its first list of candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to contest from Gorakhpur (Urban) and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya from the Sirathu Assembly constituency.

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and BJP general secretary Arun Singh named a total of 107 candidates for the first two phases of the seven-phase election.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath addresses a press conference after inspecting a COVID-19 care ward at BRD Medical Collage in Gorakhpur on January 15, 2022.

With the declaration of Mr. Adityanath’s seat as Gorakhpur, all speculation that he might contest from Ayodhya has also been put to rest. Sources in the party said that while Ayodhya may have been under consideration, with the aim that the Chief Minister’s presence at a seat outside his turf of Gorakhpur may influence more areas, the recent exit of 10 MLAs, including three Ministers from the Adityanath government, mostly from eastern Uttar Pradesh, and their joining the Samajwadi Party made the decision go towards protecting existing turfs rather than expend political capital on other seats.

The list of 107 seats, 57 for phase I and 48 for phase II, saw 63 out of 83 sitting MLAs of the party being retained and 20 MLAs dropped. As far as the caste break-up of the candidate list goes, 68% of the seats have gone to OBC candidates (44 candidates) and 19 to SC candidates, including Jagpal Singh being fielded from the general category seat of Saharanpur. While 10 women have been included in the list, no Muslim has been given ticket.

Former Uttarakhand Governor Baby Rani Maurya has been fielded from Agra (Rural) constituency. Among other prominent names in the list are Shrikant Sharma, who has been retained from Mathura, Mriganka Singh from Kairana, Pankaj Singh (son of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh) from Noida, Suresh Rana from Thana Bhawan and Dhirendra Singh from Jewar.