Indian cricketer Suresh Raina raised speculations of joining the Samajwadi Party after he met senior party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Ramgopal Yadav in New Delhi on January 21, ahead of the state assembly polls.
Raina is currently out of the ODI squad but will be with the team for the T20s against England starting from January 26 in Kanpur.
This meet came a day after the Samajwadi party announced the list of 199 candidates for the first three phases on January 20. The list includes UP CM Akhilesh Yadav’s estranged uncle Shivpal Yadav.
Shivpal is given the seat from Jaswantnagar, it is the constituency that he represents but his son Aditya kept out of it.
#FLASH Cricketer Suresh Raina met SP leader Ramgopal Yadav in Delhi pic.twitter.com/GAt0IDLZhc
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 21, 2017
Later to this announcement, the Vice President of the Samajwadi Party, Kironmoy Nanda, declared that SP will be contesting the election on 300+ seats and Congress will be given 54 seats only.
While briefing the press on January 20, Nanda told the press personnel that the alliance is not yet declared and is a personal opinion of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. He said,”We’ll fight on 300+ seats. The number of seats to be given to Congress is subject to adjustment and discussion after the alliance happens.”
The state will have seven phase pollings and the counting is scheduled on March 11.
