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A dilemma or strategy? Akhilesh maintains suspense over Kannauj
Kannauj is the seat from where the SP chief, Akhilesh Yadav, started his political career in 2002 after his father and SP patriarch, Mulayam, won this constituency for the first time in 1999.
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In an effort to reclaim its stronghold of Kannauj from the BJP, the Samajwadi Party appears to still be devising a strategy to announce its candidate for the seat. Despite continuous hints from the SP’s Kannauj unit since the 2022 UP Assembly polls that party chief Akhilesh Yadav could be the candidate for the seat, Akhilesh is maintaining a sense of mystery.
It was also the seat from where the SP chief, Akhilesh Yadav, started his political career in 2002 after his father and SP patriarch, Mulayam, won this constituency for the first time in 1999.
Akhilesh had begun frequenting the constituency so much after the 2022 polls that speculations began that he was preparing the ground to jump into the Kannauj poll fray for 2024. He never confirmed it but never denied the possibility, thus always strengthening the speculation. Just like last fortnight when he visited Kannauj, in response to reporters’ questions, he said, “It will be clear during Navratri; the one that people decide will contest the polls.” Now that Navratri is over and the party still hasn’t cleared the air on the Kannauj candidate, Akhilesh visited the constituency on Thursday and rekindled the speculations.
On Thursday, Akhilesh went to Kannauj and held a meeting with the party’s local unit workers and office-bearers. After the meeting, when reporters posed the oft-repeated question to him about who will be the candidate for the seat, Akhilesh said, “The cycle is the poll symbol from Kannauj...and I am here.” The reply is being construed as affirmation by Akhilesh that he will be the candidate.
However, within the party, it is said that it will be either Akhilesh or Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, the former Mainpuri MP. Tej Pratap Singh Yadav is Akhilesh’s nephew, and he is the only former Yadav family MP who has not figured on any of the SP lists so far. The former Badaun MP, Dharmendra Yadav, is the Azamgarh candidate, the former Firozabad MP, Akshaya Yadav, is the candidate for the same seat, the sitting Mainpuri MP, Dimple Yadav, is the candidate for the same seat, and the first-time candidate Aditya Yadav (the son of SP MLA Shivpal Yadav) is contesting from the Badaun seat.
Sources within the party indicate that it is under a strategy that Akhilesh is keeping the cards close to his heart. The SP might field Tej Pratap Singh Yadav against the sitting MP Subrat Pathak if the party feels assured of his potential victory against Pathak, or else Akhilesh might jump into the fray himself.
A senior party leader said, “There is a very strong possibility that the SP can win the seat as the party is strong there, and it is a party stronghold. Even when Subrat Pathak won the seat in 2019 by defeating the SP sitting MP Dimple Yadav, his victory was by an extremely low margin. Pathak won by a mere 12,000 votes. So, it could either be Tej or Akhilesh.”
In his earlier visits to Kannauj, Akhilesh had said, “Kannauj is my home...Our family has more than a two-decade-old connection with it, and I cannot leave Kannauj.”
The seat is one among those considered as SP’s strongholds. The SP won six elections in a row (including two bypolls) on this seat since 1998. Akhilesh won the seat thrice, and his wife and present Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav won it twice.
