Allahabad: As the list of Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) candidates was declared on Tuesday evening, the house of sitting MP from Kaushambi Vinod Kumar Sonkar at Jayantipur locality of the city, was flooded with supporters and relatives.Soon after being declared as the party’s candidate from Kaushambi from where he was first elected in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Sonkar spoke to TOI. Asked about his fight in the next elections, he said it would be too early to say anything because the SP-BSP coalition has yet not declared its candidate. “Whosoever would be contesting, the next election should be fought on the issue of development rather than caste and religious lines, which has already pushed this constituency backward,” said Sonkar.Kaushambi elections would be interesting given the fact that the 2014 runner-up Shailendra Singh — who had fought on a Samajwadi Party ticket — would now contest from the newly-floated Jansatta Dal by Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya. In the last elections, Sonkar had defeated Singh with a margin of 42,900 votes. However, the total votes polled against SP and BSP was 4,90,146, over 1.58 lakh votes more than secured by Sonkar.Moreover, as the two assembly seats of this Lok Sabha constituency, Babaganj and Kunda, are influenced by Raja Bhaiya, Sonkar would have to really work hard. “I am confident because I am the leader who has always been approachable to my voters and I am committed to stop the migration from Kaushambi, which is a major challenge for us,” he said.Equally interesting would be the elections of the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat, wherein the BJP has pitched UP tourism minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi. Although several names were in the air, the party has shown its confidence in Joshi, who has replaced Shyama Charan Gupta, who recently left the BJP and joined the SP. Gupta would constest from Banda on an SP ticket.

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