After a long wait, Samajwadi Party finally announced the name of its candidate for Ballia Lok Sabha seat on Monday, ending the suspense. Ballia has been the constituency of late PM, Chandra Shekhar, whose son, Neeraj Shekhar is to contest here on BJP ticket. Samajwadi Party has played the Brahmin card on this seat and has declared ,Sanatan Pandey its candidate.

Sanatan Pandey has been MLA from Chilkahar Assembly.  He was also a candidate of SP-BSP alliance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.  He was defeated by BJP's Virendra Singh Mast by about 15 thousand votes.

Recently, BJP had made Rajya Sabha MP Neeraj Shekhar its candidate from Ballia Lok Sabha seat.Since then, there were expectations that the SP candidate would be announced soon.  The party once again expressed confidence in Sanatan Pandey.  However, despite Ballia Lok Sabha being Brahmin dominated, Brahmins have never won from here. Sanatan Pandey also tried his luck from Rasra Assembly, but he had to face defeat.  SP had made him its candidate at one time in the 2019 elections.  In a close contest, BJP's Virendra Singh lost to Mast by about 15 thousand votes