Lucknow: Samajwadi Party on Sunday ended the suspense on its choice of a candidate for the Lucknow parliamentary seat by announcing the name of Nafisa Ali, the swimming sensation of yore, whom Congress was considering to field.
    According to sources, SP general secretary Amar Singh persuaded Nafisa to enter the fray on an SP ticket when she sounded him out on whether Samajwadis would support her run from Lucknow. Announcing her candidature, Singh said,
“Nafisa Ali is a personal friend and when I asked her whether she would come to Lucknow as SP’s candidate or would like to represent Congress, a party which has no political base in UP, she said she has full faith in SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s secular ideologies and is ready to contest polls from Lucknow as SP candidate.”
    Nafisa Ali said she was against communalism and felt SP would give her the right platform to stand up against forces that divide the nation. “SP and Mulayam Singh Yadav have been crusading against communalism and I feel honoured to join the two,” she said. She echoed the SP line on party’s pact with Kalyan Singh, former UP CM who recently quit the BJP. “Every person must be given a second chance,” she said.