The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday declared that its president Akhilesh Yadav will contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election from the Kannauj constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Mr. Yadav will file his nomination on April 25 (Thursday).
“Honorable national president Akhilesh Yadav ji will file nomination at 12 noon from Kannauj Lok Sabha seat as the SP nominee,” read a statement issued by the party.
Earlier, the SP had declared former MP Tej Pratap Yadav, who is Mr. Yadav’s nephew and son-in-law of former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad, as its candidate from the seat. But speculations were rife that the SP president would himself contest from the seat amid demands from the party’s local unit. Kannauj will go to the polls in the fourth phase on May 13.
Earlier in the day, when Mr. Yadav was asked about him contesting from Kannauj, he told reporters, “You will get to know when nomination papers will be filed, might be informed even before that.”
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“The matter is of historic victory from the seat. The ruling BJP will become history in these polls as people have made up their minds for the INDIA alliance. PDA (pichde, Dalit and alpashankhak) will defeat the NDA this time,” he said.
Mr. Yadav’s political career started from Kannauj when he was elected as a Lok Sabha member for the first time in 2000. He represented the seat thrice, while his wife Dimple Yadav got elected in 2014 and in the 2012 bypoll when the Mr. Yadav resigned after getting elected as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
Kannauj holds significance for parties claiming to represent socialist ideas as Ram Manohar Lohia, a socialist stalwart, won the seat in 1967 as a Samyukta Socialist Party nominee, while SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav won it in 1999.
