All eyes on prestige Karhal seat as Yogi, Akhilesh face off over UP bypolls

The Milkipur seat was vacated by the SP’s Awadhesh Prasad after he won from the Faizabad constituency in the Lok Sabha polls. However, after the Milkipur bypoll was postponed over a pending petition against Prasad’s 2022 election, sources said the focus has now turned to the Karhal bypoll, necessitated by sitting MLA Akhilesh Yadav’s election to the Lok Sabha.

The SP has won Karhal in consecutive polls since 1993. This time, Akhilesh’s cousin Tej Pratap Yadav is the party’s candidate from the seat.

As part of its preparations for the bypolls, the BJP has given the charge of each seat to not only state ministers but also to the CM and both deputy CMs. Adityanath has already addressed rallies and covered each of these constituencies twice before the bypolls were notified by the Election Commission. Party sources said the CM will begin an aggressive campaign after Diwali with less than a fortnight left until voting on November 13, and is expected to campaign in other poll-bound states too. Adityanath and his ministers are expected to be in Ayodhya for Diwali, sources said.

“The CM would start his campaign after Diwali. He is proactive and ministers have also been asked to start their rigorous tours soon after the festival,” said a BJP leader.

The SP, which is yet to officially launch its bypoll campaign, has focused primarily on the Karhal seat so far. For Tej Pratap’s nomination filing, the entire Yadav family had accompanied him to present a united front in a seat where the SP candidate is up against the BJP’s Anujesh Yadav, who is one of Akhilesh’s relatives.

“The BJP had won three seats (of the nine going to bypolls) and we are confident that our numbers would be more this time. The SP’s parivarvaad (nepotism) would face a hard time in Karhal this time,” a BJP leader said.

Buoyed by its performance in the Lok Sabha polls, when it won 37 seats, the SP will also likely draw confidence from the fact that four of the nine bypoll-bound seats were won by the party in the 2022 Assembly polls.

“Akhilesh ji is monitoring the election. He is travelling to other states as well but after Diwali, he will also campaign in Uttar Pradesh,” said a senior SP leader. “It is the BJP that is more worried, and that is why they need such repetitive campaigns. We already have outreach among voters, who are ready to vote in favour of PDA.”

In the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, Akhilesh had pushed the “PDA” plank to garner support from Pichde (backward classes), Dalits, and Alpsankhyak (minorities).