The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called a meeting of its NDA allies on Tuesday over the candidates' list for the bypolls on nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh.
The bypolls will be held in Katehari (Ambedkarnagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur Nagar), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj), and Kundarki (Moradabad).
The NDA meeting comes amid a deadlock between the alliance partners on seat allocation. Nishad Party chief Sanjay Nishad is demanding two seats- Katehari and Majhawan- from the BJP.
Earlier, party sources sadi that though Nishad openly expressed the willingness to contest on two seats, but the BJP high command has clearly indicated that the Nishad Party candidate will contest the Manjhwa seat on BJP's symbol.
However, Nishad has not agreed to the condition saying that the party workers won't mobilise if the candidates fight on a different party's symbol. Sanjay Nishad has been staying in Delhi for the last two days.
According to BJP sources, Jayant Chaudhary's Rashtriya Lok Dal party will contest on the Meerapur seat, while the BJP has kept the remaining eight seats with themselves.
The NDA meeting will be attended by top BJP brass, including the party’s state chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and organisational general secretary Dharampal Singh.
BJP leader Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak are also arriving in Delhi today to attend the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party has already announced candidates for six of the 9 assembly seats in UP.
Tej Pratap Yadav has been fielded from Karhal, Nasim Solanki from Sisamau, Ajit Prasad from Milkipur, Mustafa Siddiqi from Phulpur, Shobhawati Verma from Katehari, and Dr. Jyoti Bind from Majhwan. The remaining four seats have been left for ally partner Congress.