The Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance on Thursday announced its first list of 29 candidates for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
Of the 29 seats, the SP has fielded its candidates on 10 while the RLD on 19.
The SP has fielded Kunwar Singh from Agra Cantt, Madhusudan Sharma from Bah, Amarpal Sharma from Sahibabad, Aslam Chaudhary from Dhaulana, Salman Saeed from Kol, Zafar Alam from Aligarh, Nahid Hassan from Kairana, Pankaj Malik from Charthawal, Shahid Manzoor from Kithaur and Rafeeq Ansari from Meerut.
The RLD has fielded Pradeep Chaudhary from Sadabad, Tejpal Singh from Chhata, Pritam Singh from Govardhan, Mahesh Kumar Jatav from Agra (Rural), Sikri Brijesh Chahar from Fatehpur, Rautan Singh from Khairagarh, Sudesh Sharma from Modinagar, Madan Bhaiyya from Loni, Gajraj Singh from Hapur, Avtar Singh Bhadana from Jewar, Haji Yunus from Bulandshahr, Dilnawaz Khan from Syana, Bhagwati Prasad Suryavanshi from Khair, Prasann Chudhary from Shamli, Anil Kumar from Purqazi, Rajpal Singh Saini from Khatauli, Munshi Ram from Nahtaur and Ahmad Hameed from Baghpa.
All these seats fall in western region of Uttar Pradesh and will go to polls in the first phase on February 10.
The first list of the key opposition alliance was dominated by Muslim, Dalit, and Jat candidates. There are nine Muslims and six jats. Seven Dalits were also fielded on reserved seats for Dalits. Others are Brahmins (three), Gurjars (two), and a Thakur and a Saini. Both Thakur and Saini are OBC communities.
Senior SP politcian and UP minister Shahid Manzoor will contest from his traditional seat, Kithore in Meerut. Shahid Manzoor was elected as MLA for three straight terms from Kithore constituency and lost the last election.
Former four-time MLA and Congress leader Gajraj Singh, who joined the RLD a few hours before candidate declaration, was declared the RLD candidate the from Hapur reserved seat. Singh represented the Hapur constituency during all his terms and in 2017 assembly elections he lost to BJP Candidate.
