Lucknow: The BJP on Monday declared SP rebel Dara Singh Chauhan as its candidate for the bypoll to the Ghosi Assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh.
Elected last year on a Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket, Chauhan quit the party and joined the BJP in July.
The bypoll, which will be held on September 5, is being seen as a straight contest between the ruling BJP and the main opposition party — the SP. The counting of votes will be held on September 8.
Though the poll outcome will have no major impact on the BJP’s tally in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly, the party will make all efforts to snatch the seat from the SP to assert its popularity among the non-Yadav OBC voters ahead of the general elections next year.
The SP on the other hand will like to defeat the BJP before the Lok Sabha elections and send a strong message to its core voters in the state.
In the 403-member UP Legislative Assembly, the BJP has 255 MLAs, while its allies Apna Dal (Sonelal) and NISHAD party have 13 MLAs and 6 MLAs respectively. New NDA partner SBSP has 6 MLAs in the Assembly. The SP has 108 MLAs, its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) has 9 MLAs while the Congress and Jansatta Dal Loktantrik have 2 MLAs each and the BSP has 1 MLA.
The bypoll to the Ghosi Assembly constituency is the first election in the state to take place after the formation of the opposition bloc INDIA and eastern UP-centric political party Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party joining the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The declaration by the BJP was made a day after the SP announced Sudhakar Singh, a Rajput, as its candidate for the same seat.
The Ghosi bypoll was necessitated following the resignation of Chauhan.
Chauhan submitted his resignation to Uttar Pradesh Assembly Speaker Satish Mahana on July 15.
He was the forest and environment minister in the previous BJP government headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath before he resigned from the Council of Ministers in January 2022 and joined the SP.
He had also represented the Ghosi seat in the 15th Lok Sabha as a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) member.
Chauhan was the BJP MLA from Madhuban Assembly constituency in Mau district from 2017 to 2022. He won the Ghosi seat in the 2022 UP Assembly election on an SP ticket.
Sudhakar Singh was the SP MLA from Ghosi between 2012 to 2017. In the 2017 UP assembly elections, he had lost to BJP’s Fagu Chauhan from Ghosi. —PTI
