Samajwadi Party names 17 more Lok Sabha candidates

New Delhi, Jan 10 : The Samajwadi Party Saturday announced the names of 17 more candidates to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh while underlining it was 'not violating any coalition dharma' with the Congress.

Party general secretary Amar Singh released the second list of candidates at a press conference here. The Samajwadi Party had Thursday announced the names of 29 candidates from the state.

Singh named the candidates even as the party is still negotiating a pre-poll alliance with the Congress. Asked about this, He said: "I am not announcing the seats where the Congress won (the previous elections). I am not violating any coalition dharma."

The Samajwadi Party joined the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance after it supported the government during the July 22 trust vote in parliament last year over the India-US nuclear deal.

Referring to the Congress' request for "friendly fights" in some constituencies in the state, Singh said: "There is nothing like a friendly fight. A fight is a fight."

The Congress had urged the Samajwadi Party to field weak candidates in these constituencies, calling it a "friendly fight", sources said.

Three of the candidates named Saturday are sitting MPs, one is a legislator. The list includes three women. Eight seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes. The party has named an Urdu poet, Nawazish Alam Khan, from Muzaffarnagar constituency and a doctor, Yashveer Singh, from Nagina (SC) seat.

--IANS