MAU (UP), Aug 17 (PTI) Accompanied by Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak,
Samajwadi Party rebel and BJP candidate Dara Singh Chauhan filed his nomination papers for the
bypoll to Ghosi Assembly seat here.
The September 5 bypoll is being seen as a straight contest between the ruling BJP and the
Samajwadi Party (SP) as the Congress and the BSP have not announced their candidates for it. The
counting of votes will take place on September 8.
Elected last year on an SP ticket, Chauhan quit the party and joined the BJP in July.
The Ghosi bypoll was necessitated following the resignation of Chauhan.
The SP has announced Sudhakar Singh, a Rajput, as its candidate for the seat.
After filing his nomination, Chauhan said the Ghosi bypoll will lay foundation for BJP’s victory in 2024
Lok Sabha polls. "On September 8, it will be decided that all 80 Lok Sabha seats from UP will go to
the BJP," Chauhan told reporters.
In Lucknow, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed to win the Ghosi seat.
”The people are troubled by inflation and unemployment in the BJP government and they will give a
befitting reply to the BJP in the Ghosi by-election,” Yadav said.
The former chief minister said that though the government is ‘misusing’ the state machinery to
‘influence’ the bypoll, the SP is going to retain the seat with huge margin.
During the filing of nomination, Chauhan was also accompanied by state BJP chief Bhupendra
Chaudhary, MP from neighbouring Azamgarh Dinesh Lal Yadav, Power Minister A K Sharma,
Transport Minister Dayashankar Singh, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash
Rajbhar, and Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (NISHAD) party chief Sanjay Nishad.
Later, senior BJP leaders and alliance partners attended a public meeting at Bapu Inter College here.
Though the Ghosi bypoll outcome will have no major impact on the BJP’s tally in the UP Legislative
Assembly, the party will make all efforts to win the seat to assert its popularity among the non-
Yadav OBC voters ahead of the Lok Sabha elections next year.
The SP, which has announced Sudhakar Singh, a Rajput, as its candidate for the seat, would also like
to defeat the BJP to send a strong message to its core voters in the state.
The bypoll to the Ghosi constituency is the first election in the state to take place after the formation
of the opposition bloc INDIA and the SBSP joining the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Chauhan was the forest and environment minister in the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath government
during its first term before he resigned from the Council of Ministers in January 2022 and joined the
SP.
SP’s Sudhakar Singh was the MLA from Ghosi from 2012 to 2017. Earlier, he had represented the
Nathupur (Madhuban after delimitation) Assembly seat.
In the 2017 UP Assembly elections, he had lost to BJP’s Phagu Chauhan from Ghosi.
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 six MLAs, respectively. New NDA partner SBSP has six MLAs in
the Assembly.
The SP has 108 MLAs, its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) has nine MLAs while the Congress and Jansatta
Dal Loktantrik have two MLAs each and the BSP has one MLA.
