Lok Sabha polls: Bhim Army's Chandrashekhar to contest against Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh

Lucknow: Azad Samaj Party leader Chandrashekhar Azad and Samajwadi Party's Manoj Kumar on Friday filed their nomination papers from the Nagina (SC) Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

Responding to questions on the Dalit leader filing his nomination for the seat, Samajwadi Party chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told PTI that there was no electoral pact between his party and the Azad Samaj Party for this Lok Sabha election.

Two other candidates also filed their nomination papers during the day – Har Kishor Singh of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) for the Moradabad parliamentary seat and Sanjay Kumar Bharti of the Rashtriya Samaj Dal (R) for the Rampur seat.

So far, only these four nomination papers have been filed for the first phase of the Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh scheduled to be held on April 19, a senior official said here.

Nominations for the first phase of the seven-phase parliamentary elections in the state began on Wednesday. Eight parliamentary constituencies -- Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina (SC), Moradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit -- will vote in this phase.

In a statement, Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said adequate security provisions were in place for the submission of the nominations and the entire process was videographed.

Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad founded the Bhim Army in 2014.

According to the Election Commission, the notification for the polls was issued on March 20 and March 27 is the last date for filing of nominations.

Scrutiny of nominations will be done on March 28 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is March 30. The counting of votes will take place on June 4.

This time, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has announced it would contest the election alone, while the Samajwadi Party has formed an alliance with the Congress and both parties are part of the opposition INDIA bloc.

The Rashtriya Lok Dal has joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP won 62 seats and its ally Apna Dal(S) two seats, decimating the SP-BSP alliance. The Congress won the lone Rae Bareli seat of Sonia Gandhi.

The Mayawati-led party was the biggest gainer in the SP-BSP alliance as it won 10 seats. Akhilesh Yadav's SP won five seats and the RLD could not open its account.

Of the eight Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the first phase, the BJP had won the Muzaffarnagar (Sanjeev Kumar Balyan), Kairana (Pradeep Kumar Chaudhary) and the Pilibhit (Varun Gandhi) parliamentary constituencies in 2019.

The Samajwadi Party's ST Hasan won the Moradabad Lok Sabha seat, while Azam Khan emerged victorious from the Rampur Lok Sabha seat.

Haji Fazlur Rehman, Malook Nagar and Girish Chandra of the BSP won the Saharanpur, Bijnor and Nagina (SC) Lok Sabha seats in the last general election.