LUCKNOW, April 11 -- The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday named Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha's close aide Paras Nath Rai as its candidate against gangster-turned-politician the late Mukhtar Ansari's brother Afzal Ansari in Ghazipur.

At the same time, the party kept up the suspense on Kaiserganj, where former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh is a five-term MP. It also held back declaration of its candidate for the Congress bastion Rae Bareli from where there is speculation about a member of the Gandhi family contesting.

Besides Ghazipur, the BJP named candidates for six other Uttar Pradesh seats - Allahabad, Mainpuri, Ballia, Phulpur, Macchlishahr and Kaushambi - in its thi...