It’s official now.

In a significant move, the Samajwadi Party on Sunday announced to field former Miss India, actor-social activist Nafisa Ali as the party’s candidate from the prestigious Lucknow seat for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Nafisa has replaced Sanjay Dutt, who joined the party in January 2009. Dutt, popularly known as Munna-bhai was earlier given a ticket by the party to contest the elections from the same seat. However, the Supreme Court denied the permission to him for contesting these elections. Dutt has been convicted for owning illegal arms in the run-up to the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai.

The announcement to filed Nafisa for the seat was made at a press conference at the Samajwadi party office. Along with Nafisa, the newly appointed general secretary of the SP, Sanjay Dutt and senior party leader Amar Singh were also present at the occasion.

Confirming the development, Amar Singh said, “We were hesitant because she (Nafisa) has been in the Congress but when the Congress kept dilly-dallying over her candidature, we asked her about contesting the seat as a SP candidate and she agreed.”

It can be recalled that the 52 year old Nafisa had contested the 2004 Lok Sabha polls on a Congress ticket against Trinamool Congress (TC) chief Mamata Banerjee from the South Kolkata seat. However, she was defeated by the TC chief.

Tracing her relations with the Congress party as history she uttered her reservation with the party for giving ticket to Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, who were reportedly involved in the 1984 riots.

“I know for sure that the SP has strong secular credentials. I am destiny's child and I believe that this is what destiny has in store for me. I have put the Congress episode behind me and I do not wish to comment on it,” said Nafisa.