Suspended Gorakhpur-based paediatrician Dr Kafeel Khan, along with 18 others, have been named by Samajwadi Party for the upcoming elections to the Legislative Council in Uttar Pradesh. Khan will be contesting from the Deoria-Kushinagar seat.

The Election Commission had on February 6 announced that the biennial elections to 36 legislative council seats spread across 35 local bodies in Uttar Pradesh would be rescheduled and held after the state Assembly elections, following the requests of political parties. Polling for all 36 seats will be held on April 9 and the counting of votes will take place on April 12. The term of the 36 outgoing members of the Council ended on March 7.

Khan met SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday and presented a book written by him on the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy. “Met with Honourable Former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav sir and presented him a copy of The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy,” he tweeted after the meeting.

Apart from Dr Kafeel, the SP also announced the candidates from 18 other seats — Rajesh Kumar Yadav (Barabanki), Basudev Yadav (Allahabad), Anurag Verma (Kheri), Manoj Kumar (Jaunpur), Santosh Yadav (Basti-Siddharth Nagar), Rajnish Yadav (Gorakhpur-Maharajganj), Shyam Sundar Singh (Jhansi-Jalaun-Lalitpur), Sunil Kumar Singh (Lucknow-Unnao), Mashakoor Ahmad (Rampur-Bareilly), Virendra Shankar Singh (Rae Bareilly), Hira Lal Yadav (Faizabad), Rakesh Kumar Yadav (Azamgarh-Mau), Udayveer Singh (Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri), Amar Yadav (Bahraich), Umesh (Varanasi), Amit Yadav (Pilibhit-Shahjahanpur), and Dileep Singh Yadav (Agra-Firozabad).

In November last year, the UP government had terminated the services of Dr Khan. In April 2018, he was granted bail by the Allahabad high court which observed that there was no proof of medical negligence against the doctor in the case. “Yes, Dr Kafeel Khan will be our candidate,” said SP’s national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary.

Samajwadi Party will posing direct challenge to the BJP in the legislative council polls after facing disappointment in the recently concluded UP Assembly polls in which the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government claimed comfortable victory to retain a second straight term in office.