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    Lok Sabha polls 2019: Akhilesh Yadav to contest from Kannauj, Mulayam Singh from Mainpuri

    Synopsis

    SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from UP's Kannauj, while his father Maulayam Singh Yadav will contest from Mainpuri.

    akhilesh.mulayam
    Father and son of Samajvadi party of Uttar Pradesh are contesting elections from Mainpuri and Kannauj respectively.
    NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party’s strategy to make Akhilesh Yadav fight from Kannauj and party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav re-contest from Mainpuri, and not Azamgarh, in the 2019 general elections is an effort by the party to focus and regain its fort in the Yadav heartland which the BJP had managed to breach in last year’s assembly polls.

    ET was the first to report such plans on January 1 this year before Akhilesh made these formal announcements on Thursday. The BJP reacted strongly, saying Akhilesh had “violated the alliance dharma” by unilaterally announcing his and his father’s seats before BSP has even laid out its cards.

    “What if BSP wants to contest these seats? Is the alliance on or not?” BJP’s state spokesman Rakesh Tripathi asked. He said Akhilesh and Mulayam returning to their “caste-favourable” seats showed a lack of confidence on their part.

    “Why don’t they contest from Lucknow, Varanasi, Allahabad or Kanpur? Why this dependence on caste factor alone despite the talk of a big alliance? Mulayam Singh is abandoning Azamgarh as his party knows it cannot win that seat now,” Tripathi told ET.

    Mulayam Singh Yadav, who won both the Mainpuri and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in 2014, had chosen to retain Azamgarh, and Mainpuri was re-won by his grandson Tej Pratap Yadav. SP had won 5 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, four of them in the Yadav belt. While the party held on in Azamgarh, winning 5 of the 10 MLA seats here in the 2017 assembly polls against nine it had won in 2012, it lost big time in its Yadav belt in 2017, losing 11 of the 18 assembly seats in Etawah, Etah, Mainpuri, Auriya and Kannauj districts. BJP won all these 11 seats.

    Mulayam giving up his long-time Mainpuri seat then is seen as one of the factors of this decline here besides the infighting in the party.

    BSP, which performed well in Azamgarh in the 2017 elections by winning 4 of the 10 assembly seats, could fight this Lok Sabha seat now. While SP, expected to only fight 30-35 seats in an alliance with BSP, could focus back on its strength area. SP leader Abhishek Mishra said seat choices by its top two leaders were “repetition” as Akhilesh and Mulayam were multiple-time MPs from Kannauj and Mainpuri, respectively.

    “Akhilesh Yadav has said he wanted to end any charge of dynasty and instead of Dimple Yadav, he will contest from Kannauj,” Mishra said.

    “There is an alliance with the BSP but SP will focus on all seats in the state. Wherever we are not fighting and BSP candidate fights in the alliance, our party infrastructure and cadre will be active there,” Mishra explained.



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    ( Originally published on Jun 14, 2018 )
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