Uttar Pradesh: SP announces 2 candidates for Council polls

SP president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday announced Ahmed Hasan and Rajendra Choudhury as the official candidates of the party in the council polls.

While Hasan, who was the outgoing leader of the opposition in the council, has been repeated, Choudhury is a former UP minister and a close aide of the president.

The SP is the first to announce the candidates who would be filing their nominations on Thursday morning.

A candidate will require 32 first preference votes to win the polls but the SP now requires 64 votes though they just have 49 members in the Assembly, who are the voters in these polls.

Several BSP members are likely to vote for SP, if voting takes place, a senior SP leader told UNI here on Wednesday.

On the other hand, the ruling BJP, who is set to win 10 seats, are yet to announce its candidates so far.

But now all eyes are on the move of the BSP, whether it will field candidature or not.

January 18 is the last date for filing of the nominations. If there are more than 12 candidates then elections will be held on January 28.

During the last Rajya Sabha polls in UP, a similar situation had arisen when SP gave one candidate and supported another independent to defeat the BSP's official candidate.

But in the scrutiny, the SP backed independent candidate's nomination was rejected on technical grounds.