left the Congress to join the BJP +will be held in seven stages +NEW DELHI: The BJP today released its second list of 155 candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections , with former Congress leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Sidharth Nath Singh, and Pankaj Singh , son of Home Minister Rajnath Singh , prominent among them.The official list was released by BJP general secretary Arun Singh and the party's Uttar Pradesh unit chief Keshav Prasad Maurya. The party has so far announced the names of 304 candidates, with no Muslim nominee among them.Rita Bahuguna, a prominent Brahmin face and a former Uttar Pradesh Congress chief, will contest from Lucknow Cantonment. Shein October last year.Pankaj Singh will make his electoral debut in Noida. A general secretary in the party's state unit, Pankaj has missed out on becoming its nominee in a couple of previous elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already made several trips to the state - where the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have tended to dominate politics - to campaign for the BJP ahead of the polls.Inputs from agencies

Source: Times of India January 22, 2017 14:31 UTC