Date:13/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/13/stories/2009011355781200.htm

National

Samajwadi Party announces five more candidates

Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI: The Samajwadi Party on Monday announced five more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh. With this, the party has announced candidates for 52 of the 80 seats.Announcing this here, party general secretary Amar Singh said most of the seats that remained to be decided were those with which the party was working out a poll alliance with the Congress.

The SP has fielded sitting MP Kirti Vardhan Singh from Gonda, Shahid Manjoor from Meerut, Riyaz Ahmed from Pilibhit, Ramkishan Yadav from Chandauli and Raj Kishore Singh from Basti. Gonda was one seat that the Congress wanted as part of the seat-sharing arrangement.

Differences had cropped up in the seat-sharing talks between the SP and the Congress after the latter sought around 35 seats, some of which had sitting SP MPs. However, both the parties have kept their options open.

Mr. Singh announced that the former Fiji High Commissioner, Ajay Singh, the former Congressman, Aslam Khan, and ex-chairman of National Commission for Backward Classes, Rajendra Yadav, had joined the Samajwadi Party. Mr. Khan was the vice-president of the UPCC when Salman Khurshid was its chief.