While the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress sealed their alliance for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the BJP came up with its second list of 155 candidates making the election scene vibrant.

The BJP’s list, announced here on Sunday, included the names of turncoats and relatives of leaders. Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj Singh will contest from Noida. Daughter of Lok Sabha MP Hukum Singh, Mriganka, will contest from Kairana. BJP spokesperson and grandson of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri got a ticket to contest from Allahabad West. Former Congress President of Uttar Pradesh Rita Bahuguna Joshi will contest from Lucknow Cantonment.

The BJP had released its first list of 149 candidates last week. The announcement was made by BJP General Secretary Arun Singh after a meeting by the Election Committee chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Meanwhile, leaders of Samajwadi Party and Congress announced in Lucknow that the alliance will contest all the 403 seats. After a hard bargain led by senior leaders Ahmed Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Congress managed to get 105 seats. SP will contest in 298 seats. “For unity and integrity of India and following secular ideology, we will continue our fight under SP National President Akhilesh Yadav,” state Samajwadi Party chief Naresh Uttam told reporters in Lucknow. “The country’s secular fabric will become stronger when Akhilesh Yadav becomes the Chief Minister again,” he added maintaining that uprooting the BJP is the main agenda of the alliance.

Congress’Uttar Pradesh unit President Raj Babbar said the effort will be to boost secularism. “Keeping these factors in mind, Congress leadership agreed to strike an alliance to thwart BJP’s divisive politics and at the same time to boost secularism and promote communal and social harmony. Our ideologies are not different. We share many common ideologies,” he said.

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