BJP has fielded Ghanshyam Lodhi from Rampur- seeking to gain both from his hold over the OBC Lodhi community with him also being a close aide of Kalyan Singh, as well as from his known proximity to Azam Khan who is now the MLA from Rampur after giving up his LS membership. Lodhi was a SP MLC but joined the BJP right before the assembly elections.
In Yadav-Muslim dominated Azamgarh, the BJP has fielded Bhojpuri actor and singer Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ who had also represented BJP against Akhilesh Yadav in 2019 general elections but lost by close to 2.6 lakh votes. Yadav has already started campaigning for the polls. The battle for Azamgarh is emerging to be an interesting one as the BSP has fielded Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali with an eye on the Muslim votes. While there was speculation that SP would nominate Dimple Yadav, the buzz was put to some rest after word went around that the party has decided to field Sushil Anand, a Dalit and son of BAMCEF’s founding member Baihari Babu.