7 Muslims among BSP’s 25 candidates

Neeraj Mohan

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New Delhi, March 24

Announcing its candidates for 25 of the 80 parliamentary seats in UP on Sunday, the BSP has fielded seven candidates from the Muslim community, making the contest tough for the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance.

The BSP, which has announced to go solo in UP, released two lists of 16 and nine candidates on Sunday.

As expected the BSP has focused on Muslim candidates in the western Uttar Pradesh as the party has fielded Mohammad Irfan Saifi from Moradabad and Zishan Khan from Rampur. Similarly, Shaukat Ali will contest from the Sambhal parliamentary constituency where he will face the challenge from Shafiqur Rahman Barq’s successor Ziaur Rahman (SP). The BSP has nominated Mujahid Hussain from the Amroha constituency and he will contest against BJP’s Kanwar Singh Tanwar and the SP-Congress alliance’s Danish Ali. Majid Ali will contest from the Saharanpur seat. Shripal Singh has been pitted against Iqra Hassan of the Congress-SP candidate from the Muslim-dominated Kairana parliamentary seat. Mujahid Hussain will contest from Amroha and Devvrat Tyagi from Meerut. Abid Ali has been fielded from Aonla and Anis Ahmad Khan, alias Phool Babu, from Pilibhit.

In the seat-sharing pact between the Congress and the SP, most constituencies in the western UP have been given to the Samajwadi Party. The Congress has only got Saharanpur, Mathura and Amroha seats.

Earlier, it was expected that the western UP will witness a straight fight between the BJP-RLD and SP-Congress alliances, but the BSP has given a new angle to the contest by fielding many Muslim candidates.