The BJP which announced candidates on the first day of Navratri has named veteran leader Suresh Tiwari for the Lucknow Cantt seat that was won by Rita Bahuguna Joshi in 2017. She vacated the seat earlier this year after she got elected to the Lok Sabha.
In Rampur, the BJP has announced the name of Bharat Bhushan Gupta.
This is a major jolt to Jaya Prada who had been looking forward to wrest this seat from the Samajwadi Party. Jaya Prada had even started campaigning and at a meeting on Friday, she sang "Jeet jayenge hum tu agar saath hai".
The Rampur seat is considered to be the bastion of Samajwadi Party leader Mohd Azam Khan who is now a Lok Sabha member.
The other candidates announced by BJP are Kirat Singh from Gangoh, Surendra Maithani in Govind Nagar (Kanpur), Rajkumar Sahyogi in Iglas, Anand Shukla in Manikpur (Chitrakoot), Ambrish Rawat from Zaidpur (Barabanki), Rajesh Singh from Jalalpur in Ambedkar Nagar, Saroj Sonkar from Balha in Bahraich and Vijay Rajbhar in Ghosi.
The BJP has not yet declared its candidate from Pratapgarh which was won by its ally Apna Dal in 2017.
The 11 UP assembly seats on which by-elections are to be held are those that belong to MLAs who had won the Lok Sabha elections and had resigned as members of the state assembly.
By-elections are not being held on the Tundla seat since the matter is sub-judice.
Of the seats where by-elections are being held, Rampur was held by Samajwadi Party while Jalalpur was won by Bhaujan Samaj Party in 2017 and the remaining seats belonged to BJP.
The by-elections will be held on October 21 and the counting of votes will take place on October 24.
( With inputs from IANS )