New Delhi: The third list of 67 candidates for UP assembly polls has been released by BJP on Tuesday with the former BSP leader Swamy Prasad Maurya, R K Chaudhary and Dara Singh Chouhan who had recently quit the saffron party. So far the party has announced the names of 370 candidates which do not have any Muslim candidate among them.
Uttar Pradesh election to the 403-member Assembly goes to polls on February 11. Voting will be carried out in seven phases and will last until March 8.
Maurya will be BJP’s candidate from Padrona seat, while RK Chaudhary and Dara Singh Chauhan have been nominated from Mohanlalganj and Madhuban seats respectively. All three are influential faces of their respective castes, which plays a major role in deciding the fortune of various candidates in Uttar Pradesh. It has also nominated its former state party President Surya Pratap Shahi from Pathardeva.
As per the 2001 Census, there are 72.69% Hindus and 25.89% Muslims in western UP. Even though Hindus are in a majority, the percentage of Muslims is higher here than in Uttar Pradesh as a whole.