LS Polls: SP announces names of 16 candidates, Dimple to contest from Mainpuri

Samajwadi Party (SP) has announced the names of 16 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, to take place in this year. The SP has fielded Dimple Yadav, wife of former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav from Mainpuri and Shafiqur Rahman Barq from Sambhal and Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow. Dimple Yadav of the Samajwadi Party won the Mainpuri parliamentary byelection in December 2022, defeating Raghuraj Singh Shakya of the BJP by a margin of 2,88,461 votes. Considered as SP’s bastion, the seat was held by party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and it got vacated after his death on October 10. Akshay Yadav has been fielded from Firozabad, while from Banda, the SP has fielded Shivshakar Singh Patel.