Poonam Sinha, wife of newly inducted Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha, joined the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday. Samajwadi Party leader Ravidas Mehrotra said she will be fielded from Lucknow against Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
Mehrotra requested the Congress not to field a candidate from the constituency to help the Akhilesh Yadav-led party’s coalition with the Bahujan Samaj Party defeat the BJP. The Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance had excluded the Congress from its coalition ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in the state.
“She will file nomination on April 18,” Mehrotra said.
“Yes somebody must contest, that is the beauty of democracy,” Rajnath Singh told ANI about Sinha’s candidature. “We will fight elections with full dignity and etiquette, which is part of Lucknow’s heritage.”
Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha officially joined the Indian National Congress on April 6 at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi. Soon after he joined the party, the Congress had announced that Sinha would contest from Patna Sahib Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar. The Bharatiya Janata Party had denied the ticket from Patna Sahib to Sinha, a two-term MP from that seat.
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