The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday, 2 February, announced that Swami Prasad Maurya will contest the upcoming Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly polls from Fazilnagar seat in Kushinagar.
Maurya had recently joined the party after quitting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Meanwhile, Pallavi Patel has been declared as SP's candidate from Sirathu in Kushinagar and will be up against the BJP leader and UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.
In Lucknow's Sarojninagar, SP has fielded Abhishek Mishra.
BJP saw a flurry of resignations in January beginning with Swami Prasad Maurya, who had resigned from his position as a minister in Yogi Adityanath's UP Cabinet on 11 January and joined the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party on 14 January.
Maurya, who is an OBC (Other Backward Class) leader, had said in his resignation letter that he had resigned due to the "gross negligence meted out to Dalits, backward classes, farmers, unemployed youth, and small and middle-class businessmen in the state".
With just a week left in the 2022 state Assembly elections, beginning with the first phase of voting on 10 February, it is to be seen whether the saffron party will survive the MLA exodus and OBC vote erosion, or whether it will backfire on the SP.
The voting will end on 7 March, with the seventh and last phase of the polling in the state. The counting of votes will be held on 10 March.
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