TN farmers to contest against Modi; AAP announces list for UP and Bihar

With two more days left to file nominations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, politicians and parties are scurrying to meet the deadline. Here are the latest updates from various states across the country:

Jammu and Kashmir

Former J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said she will contest the Anantnag seat. Her party, the Peoples Democratic Party, will not contest the two Jammu seats to ensure “secular votes are not divided.”

Bihar

The Aam Aadmi Party has announced three candidates for Bihar. While Aleemuddin Ansari will contest Kishanganj, Satyendra Kumar will enter the fray in Bhagalpur and Raghunath Kumar will contest Sitarmahi.

Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Shailesh Kumar will contest the Lok Sabha polls from Bhagalpur, says party leader Ram Chandra Purve. Jayprakash Narayan will contest from Banka for the party, ANI reported.

Kanhaiya Kumar, the former president of the JNU students’ union, will contest the Lok Sabha election from Begusarai on a CPI’s ticket.

Assam

Tezpur MP Ram Prasad Sarmah, who has been denied a ticket, has said that he will form a new party with other disgruntled members of the BJP once the results of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections are declared on May 23.

Sikkim

The Sikkim Damai Samaj is reportedly upset with the ruling Sikkim Democratic Front for not giving any representation to the community among the Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates declared by the party on Saturday. Two seats are reserved in the state Assembly — Zoom-Salghari (West Sikkim) and West Pendam (East Sikkim) — for SC community.

Manipur

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh claimed that the NDA government would return to power at the centre and the BJP will win both the Lok Sabha seats in the state. Scrutiny of nomination for the outer Manipur seat is on March 26 while that of inner seat is on March 27.

Tamil Nadu

Over 100 Tamil Nadu ryots will dress up like Aghori sadhus and seek alms in Uttar Pradesh to pay for filing their nominations (about ₹25,000 for each nomination) to the Varanasi constituency from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting, farmers’ leader P Ayyakannu said Sunday. This plan is to try and bring back focus on the plight of farmers, Ayyakannu said.

Congress has fielded Karti P Chidambaram, son of former union minister P Chidambaram, in the Sivaganga Lok Sabha constituency. Karti, who secured the fourth position in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Sivaganga, will face BJP candidate H Raja.

Meanwhile, on Saturday night, the campaign vehicle of union minister Pon Radhakrishnan was seized by a flying squad for want of have proper papers. According to the officials in Kanyakumari district, a specially-designed election campaign vehicle was on its way to Kanyakumari when it was checked and taken possession of.

Karnataka

The Congress, which is to contest 20 Lok Sabha seats as per the coalition agreement in Karnataka, fielded 9 out of 10 sitting MPs. Muddahanumegowda from Tumakuru has been denied a ticket as the party has ceded the seat to JD(S). The party has also given tickets to two sitting MLAs — Eshwar Khandre (Bidar) and Shamanur Shivashankarappa (Davangere). It is yet to declare candidates for two constituencies namely Bengaluru South and Dharwad.

Madhya Pradesh

The Congress has declared its first list of nine candidates, for the Lok Sabha elections in the state, which includes party veteran Digvijaya Singh and Meenakshi Natarajan. Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik released the list late on Saturday night. The state has 29 parliamentary seats.

Tripura

Bru voters lodged in relief camps in Tripura will exercise their franchise for the lone Lok Sabha seat in Mizoram on April 11 in special polling booths, which will be set up at the Kanhum village in Mizoram-Tripura border, officials said on Sunday.

Delhi

As the Aam Aadmi Party launched its Lok Sabha election campaign in Delhi, party leaders, including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, requested people to vote in the name of full statehood, while attacking the BJP for not fulfilling its promises and “torturing” the ruling AAP. The AAP is contesting the elections with the slogan ‘Poorna rajya banao jhadu ka button dabao’, telling people that Delhi will get full statehood if they vote for the party. Congress president Rahul Gandhi is likely to take the final call on an alliance with AAP shortly.

Uttar Pradesh

A day after it was reported that Haryanvi folk singer and dancer Sapna Chaudhary joined the Congress and is likely to take on BJP’s Hema Malini in Mathura, the singer declared that she had not joined the grand old party. “The photograph with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is old. I am not going to campaign for any political party,” she told ANI.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Azamgarh seat while party leader Azam Khan has been fielded in Rampur. The party has also released its list of star campaigners which include Akhilesh Yadav, Ram Gopal Yadav, Azam Khan, Dimple Yadav and Jaya Bachchan, ANI reported. However, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s name does not figure in the list.

The AAP released its first list of candidates for Uttar Pradesh. According to it, Yogesh Dahiya will contest the Saharanpur seat, Shweta Sharma the Gautam Buddh Nagar seat and Satish Chandra Sharma the Aligarh seat.