Lucknow: In a major embarrassment for the Congress, two candidates filed nomination papers for post of Lucknow Mayor in the upcoming municipal elections on Wednesday.
Congress had changed the name of its mayoral candidate on Tuesday, within 12 hours of announcing the name of another candidate.
On Monday evening, Congress had named former IAS officer Kusum Sharma as their mayoral candidate but replaced her with Prema Awasthi on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, both of them filed their nomination papers.
Congress spokesperson Virendra Madan told Tuesday that Prema is the official candidate for mayoral elections. “Earlier, the name of Kusum Sharma was announced but after the party’s legal cell scrutinised her papers, some documents were found missing. Those documents were required for filing nomination; hence we had to drop her name,” he said.
“That is why Prema Awasthi’s name was decided at the last moment. I am confident Kusum Sharma's nomination will be cancelled due to lack of nomination papers,” he added.
Prema is the wife of former Congress MLA, the late Surendra Nath Awasthi alias Puttu Awasthi. Surendra was elected on Congress ticket in 1996 but resigned in 2000 to allow BJP Chief Minister Rajnath Singh to enter the state assembly from Haidergarh seat in Barabanki district.
Later, BJP sent him to the upper house of the state legislature. He also contested the last Lok Sabha elections on BSP ticket from Kaiserganj seat.
The 652 civic bodies in 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh will go polls in three phases. Polling for the three phases will be on November 22, 26 and 29 while counting of votes will be done on December 1.
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