New Delhi, BJP on Monday issued a fresh list of candidates for seven Uttar Pradesh constituencies including Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan from the prestigious and politically crucial Gorakhpur.
Ravi Kishan is an actor, politician and television personality who works in Hindi cinema and Bhojpuri cinema and will be pitted against Surhita Chatterjee Karim of the Congress and Ram Bhuwal Nishad of the Samajwadi Party.
Gorakhpur has been political constituency of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has been consecutively winning from the seat for five terms since 1998.He had won the seat in 2014 as well. However, in by-election to the seat after the vacancy created when Yogi moved as the UP Chief Minister, Samajwadi Party’s Praveen Kumar Nishad won the seat creating one of the major political sensations in country’s most populous state.
Mr Nishad polled 48.87 per cent of votes and had wrested the seat by defeating BJP’a Upendra Dutt Shukla. On April 4, Mr Nishad had joined BJP in presence of Union Minister J P Nadda. Praveen’s father Sanjay Nishad is the head of the Nishad Party.
The BJP ticket for Ravi Kishan comes amid speculation that Praveen Nishad could be BJP nominee for the crucial seat. Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan, a Brahmin, is from Jaunpur, over 160 kilometres from Gorakhpur.
The Samajwadi Party has announced Ram Bhuwal Nishad as its candidate from the prestigious Gorakhpur seat in Uttar Pradesh which is considered a bastion of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
In Monday’s announcement, BJP CEC also said that the saffron party will field Praveen Nishad from Sant Kabir Nagar , and also decided has fielded Mukut Bihari from Ambedkar Nagar and Sangam Lal Gupta from Pratapgarh.
Ramapati Ram Tripathi will contest from Deoria, K P Singh from Jaunpur anf Ramesh Bind from Bhadohi, Central Election Committee Secretary J P Nadda said in a statement.