NEW DELHI: As one descends off Lucknow Agra Expressway near the 92-km landmark, a squeakily clean service road takes one to the Ghiror crossing of Karhal. With a three-way exit from here onwards, it’s an unofficial gateway to the Yadav Land. This was an impregnable fort of Samajwadi Party since its inception in 1992. In 2012, SP won 25 seats in its bastion. But the saffron wave blew it apart in 2017. BJP won 23 and SP just six. This time, with both SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and uncle Shivpal contesting from the neighbouring seats of Karhal and Jaswantnagar, will the tide be turned?
Akhilesh contesting from the home turf has charged up SP supporters across the region. Although top BJP leaders — Union home minister Amit Shah, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, deputy CM Kesh-av Maurya — have all trooped in to enable BJP’s Karhal candidate SP Singh Baghel to raise a formidable challenge, Arjun Yadav, a Jaswant Nagar-based SP functionary, says: “There is just one question being asked in Etawah and Mainpuri — who will have a bigger victory? Akhilesh ji or Shivpal ji.”
