Lagatar24 Desk
Lucknow, Jan 22: Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, will run for the Karhal seat in Mainpuri district, which is his family’s home turf, in next month’s Assembly election, which would be his first.
Yadav’s uncle, Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav, confirmed this information today, saying his nephew would win with “record” votes.
Since 1993, Karhal has voted for a Samajwadi Party candidate in every election except 2002, when the BJP won. Sobaran Yadav presently holds the seat, which was returned to Yadav’s party in 2007.
It is also one of five Assembly seats that make up the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, which elected Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh’s father and founder of the Samajwadi Party, to the Lok Sabha five times.
Karhal is around 5 kilometres from Saifai, the Yadav family’s ancestral residence.
Following weeks of uncertainty, Akhilesh Yadav, who is leading a ‘rainbow’ alliance of regional parties to unseat the ruling BJP, has confirmed that he will run in his maiden state election.
He announced in November that he will not run for re-election. His party, on the other hand, had other ideas and raced to clarify that the collective would make the final choice.
It is being said that the BJP’s decision to run Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from his Gorakhnath heartland increased the pressure on Yadav and influenced his decision to contest the election this time.
Akhilesh Yadav, a Lok Sabha member from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, said this week that if he wins the poll, he will have to ask his constituents for “permission” to leave the seat.
The possibility of a third high-profile debut arose yesterday after Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra stated that she is unsure about running for the election. That was after one of her comments was widely interpreted as being her party’s Chief Minister candidate.
She then emphasised that her comments about being the Chief Minister candidate was “tongue-in-cheek” and that she had no idea if she would run in the election.
UP will vote in a seven-phase poll that will begin on February 10 and end exactly one month later.
