By IANS,
Lucknow : The ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh Friday released a list of eight candidates for the 12 seats falling vacant Jan 31 in the Vidhan Parishad – the upper house of state legislature.
Party president and Chief Minister Mayawati’s cabinet colleague Naseemuddin Siddiqui tops the list.
Among others were Dharam Prakash Bhartiya, Dr. Vijay Pratap, Ram Raksha, Om Prakash Tripathi, Ashok Kumar, Pratap Singh and Lokesh Prajapati. Out of these, Vijay Pratap is contesting a bypoll necessitated by the death of Samajwadi Party (SP) member Ram Saran Das, who was also the party’s state president.
With a strength of 217 in the 403-member state legislature, BSP is all set to win seven seats clean.
The ruling party had held only four of these 12 seats while four seats were held by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), three by the SP and one by the Congress.