Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will contest next month's Assembly election from the Gorakhpur (Urban) seat, the BJP said Saturday afternoon, as it released its first list of candidates.
Yogi's deputy, Keshav Prasad Maurya, will contest the Sirathu seat in Prayagraj district.
Polling for the Gorakhpur (Urban) seat, which is the Chief Minister's stronghold and voted him to the Lok Sabha for five straight terms till 2017, will be on March 3 - the sixth and penultimate phase.
"The decision has been made after much deliberation... the final decision (was taken) by the top leadership of the party," Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told reporters, dismissing speculation that Yogi had been quietly adamant about contesting from Gorakhpur.
"Yogiji said 'I will contest from any seat party asks me to'... This was the party's decision - that Yogi will contest from Gorakhpur seat," Mr Pradhan said.
There was speculation earlier that the Chief Minister - who has never stood in an Assembly election before - would contest from one of two temple towns - Ayodhya or Mathura.
This was after the BJP's core group expressed an interest in fielding Yogi from these seats, particularly after the eastern part of the state has been seen as drifting away from the party.
AdvertisementThe BJP faces internal dissidence after 10 of its Uttar Pradesh MLAs, including three ministers, walked out of the Yogi Adityanath government this week.
Several of them, including influential OBC leaders and ex-ministers Dharam Singh Saini and Swami Prasad Maurya, have since joined rival Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, in a move that has blown a big hole in the BJP's strategy to attract non-Yadav OBC votes for this election.
AdvertisementFielding Yogi from Ayodhya, the sources said, checks many of the boxes as the ongoing construction of the Ram temple had boosted the seat's political profile for the ruling party.
It also allows the Chief Minister to capitalise on and further build his brand as Hindutva icon. The temple town falls in the Awadh region, where rivals Samajwadi Party have been traditionally strong.
AdvertisementOn Wednesday, however, sources told NDTV that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who chaired a meeting of the BJP's Central Election Committee, would take the final call on Yogi's candidacy.
UP votes for a new government in a seven-phase poll that begins on February 10, with results to be counted on March 10.
In today's list the BJP has named 107 candidates, of which the party won 83 in the previous election. The winning MLAs from 63 of these seats have been retained, with the remaining 20 new faces.
Candidates for the other 296 seats in UP's 403-member Assembly will be announced later.
