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Journalism of Courage
Just two days after declaring the candidature of Tej Pratap Singh Yadav from Kannauj Lok Sabha seat, the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday said that party chief Akhilesh Yadav will instead contest from there and would file his nomination papers on Thursday.
On its official X account, the SP said Akhilesh would file nomination papers at 12 pm from Kannauj on Thursday — the last date for filing nominations for the seat which goes to polls in the fourth phase on May 13.
On Monday, the SP had sprung a surprise by naming 36-year-old Tej Pratap, a nephew of Akhilesh, from Kannauj despite speculation of the SP chief contesting from there.
The SP had then said that Akhilesh had “larger responsibilities” of taking care of the party and the organisation during the Lok Sabha elections.
Tej Pratap is the maternal grandson of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s elder brother Ratan Singh Yadav and son-in-law of RJD chief Lalu Prasad.
However, sources said that after two days of convincing by Kannauj’s party leadership, the SP chief “made up his mind to contest” the seat.
“The leadership of the party wants Akhilesh ji to contest because that will help the SP not just in Kannauj but also in neighbouring Lok Sabha constituencies. It will galvanise the party cadre and supporters,” said a senior SP leader.
Kannauj has been a Yadav family bastion – the SP has won the seat six times since 1999 — until the BJP wrested it in 2019.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, Akhilesh had won from Azamgarh, defeating Bhojpuri film actor and BJP candidate Dinesh Lal Yadav “Nirahua” by a margin of 2.59 lakh votes. He later vacated the seat, when he won from Karhal in the 2022 UP Assembly polls. He then went on to become the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly.
Over the last six months, Akhilesh has been frequently visiting Kannauj, fuelling speculations about his candidature from the seat.
The SP chief, in fact, first became an MP from Kannauj in 2000 when he contested a bypoll on the seat after his father and party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav vacated the seat. Akhilesh had won the election by 58,725 votes defeating the BSP’s Akbar Ahmad Dumpy.
He won the seat again in 2004 and 2009, but had to vacate it in 2012 when he became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. In the subsequent bypoll, his wife Dimple Yadav won from Kannauj unopposed. She went on to retain the seat in 2014 but lost it to the BJP in 2019.
Apart from Akhilesh, four other members of the Yadav family are in the fray this Lok Sabha election. While Akhilesh’s wife Dimple is contesting from Mainpuri — a seat the SP has been winning since 1999 — Yadav’s cousins Akshay, Dharmendra, and Aditya are contesting from Firozabad, Azamgarh, and Badaun, respectively. Most of these seats have been Yadav family strongholds and have either been contested by members of the family or those close to them in the past.
