The Samajwadi Party Thursday changed its candidate for the Lucknow parliamentary seat, now naming Science and Technology Minister Abhishek Mishra as its nominee.

 

 The announcement was made by party general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav.The 37-year-old Mishra, currently a legislator from Lucknow (North), is a former IIM-Ahmedabad professor. He replaces Ashok Bajpayi as the candidate in the Uttar Pradesh capital.

 

 Mishra, who joined the Samajwadi Party ahead of the 2012 assembly election, is the son of former bureaucrat Jai Shankar Mishra. Rajnath Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party president, Rita Bahuguna Joshi of the Congress and Nakul Dubey of the Bahujan Samaj Party are also in the fray for the constituency that goes to polls April 30.