17 Candidates, 7 Seats, 10 Changes: PM Modi Points to Samajwadi Party’s Musical Chairs This Election Season

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday targeted the Samajwadi Party for “changing candidates every hour”, after as many as 17 candidates were given tickets by Akhilesh Yadav’s party on seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh, including 10 changes.

“Look at the situation of the Samajwadi Party… They are changing their candidates every hour,” the PM said in Saharanpur.

He also slammed the Congress for not being able to declare candidates from their stronghold seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh. The PM said all this shows the INDIA bloc is unstable.

“The film of two boys which flopped in the last election is now again released here in UP,” the PM said, referring to the SP-Congress alliance in the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

SP’s Changing Candidates

The Samajwadi Party has changed nearly 17 candidates in western Uttar Pradesh so far, with 10 changes being made on as many as seven seats, and some seats now seeing the third candidate from the SP in the fray. This has exposed the indecision and confusion in the SP ranks, leaders of the BJP say.

In the Gautam Budh Nagar seat, SP had first declared Mahendra Nagar as its candidate, then changed the same to Rahul Awana and finally Mahendra Nagar became the candidate again. In Meerut, against BJP’s Arun Govil, the SP first declared Bhanu Pratap Singh as the candidate, then Atul Pradhan, and finally Sunita Verma has become the candidate.

In Moradabad, sitting MP ST Hasan was initially declared the candidate by the Samajwadi Party, but was changed at the last moment to Ruchi Veera. Similarly, in Baghpat, SP changed its candidate from Manoj Chaudhary to Amarpal Sharma at the last moment.

In Bijnor, the party changed its candidate from Yashveer Singh to Deepak Saini.

In Misrikh, the SP had first announced Rampal Rajvanshi as the candidate, then replaced him with his son Manoj Kumar Rajvanshi, and then with his daughter-in-law Sangita Rajvanshi.

In Badaun, it declared its senior leader Shivpal Yadav as the candidate, but Shivpal now wants his son to be given the ticket.