KANNAUJ Just before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav extended his blessings to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a second term in office, on the last day of the parliament session.
Little did Yadav know that he would have to see his family’s invincibility end in Kannauj within a few months in his lifetime.
Expanding his footprint on the Yadav-Muslim dominated seat in the 90s, Mulayam had successfully turned it into a bastion of the Samajwadi Party’s first family. In 16 elections Kannauj has seen since 1967, Yadav candidates won 10 times and non-Yadavs six times. The SP won this seat seven times.
The winning streak of the family from 1998 to 2019 was broken by BJP’s Brahmin candidate Subrat Pathak. He defeated SP president Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple by a margin of 12,000 votes.
Mulayam Singh Yadav was alive to see the fort going down. He passed away three years later in 2022, at the age of 82. After the loss of this family seat, Akhilesh Yadav is in fray from Kannauj for the fourth time, up against ‘giant killer’ Pathak, with a question looming whether he would be able to reclaim Mulayam Singh’s legacy.
Known as ‘attar hub’, Kannauj has for long stood as a bastion of the Samajwadi party. Dr Ram Manohar Lohia won it for the first time in 1967. Before that, Lohia had lost three elections on the trot and won the 1963 bypoll from Farrukhabad, of which Kannauj was a part then.
{{/usCountry}}Known as ‘attar hub’, Kannauj has for long stood as a bastion of the Samajwadi party. Dr Ram Manohar Lohia won it for the first time in 1967. Before that, Lohia had lost three elections on the trot and won the 1963 bypoll from Farrukhabad, of which Kannauj was a part then.
{{/usCountry}}Prof Jeevan Shukla, a retired professor from a degree college in Kannauj, remembers Mulayam Singh Yadav building a family legacy here, propagating Lohia, his work in the region and caste-social equations, which strongly favoured his politics.
Parties with socialist ideology have won Kannauj 11 times. Congress and BJP have won Kannauj on two occasions - SN Mishra in the bypoll after Lohia’s death in 1968 and Sheila Dixit in 1984 seat for the Congress. The BJP managed to win it in 1996 when Chandra Bhushan Singh ‘Munnu Babu’ was elected and then Subrat Pathak in 2019.
In 1998, SP’s Pradeep Yadav contested the seat for the first time and won. Mulayam Singh Yadav contested this seat in 1999 and then resigned to launch his son--Akhilesh who debuted in 2000. Those who remember the 2000 bypoll point out the hard work of the SP patriarch to ensure his victory.
“He reached out to different communities, be it lower caste or the upper caste. He spent most of the time in Kannauj,” said Rajan Mishra, a political observer. During his chief ministership between 2003 and 2007, he paid equal attention to Kannauj as he did for Saifai, his native village. “Netaji cultivated Kannauj for his son meticulously; it was his legacy he was passing on to Akhilesh,” said Mishra.
But now in his quest to reclaim his father’s legacy, Akhilesh finds himself in a different situation. Unlike the past, the BJP has four assembly constituencies - Chibramau, Kannauj Sadar, Tirwa, Rasoolabad (Kanpur Dehat) while Bidhuna (Auraiya) is with the SP, said Shabban Khan, a retired teacher of political science from a degree college.
“He has acknowledged this reality and has focused this time on non-Yadav OBCs and Dalits,” he added.
His choice of proposers while filing nomination form is a clear indicator of his strategy. Three of the four proposers were dalit, non-Yadav OBC and a Muslim. Akhilesh has given his poll campaign in the hands of a Brahmin - Bauan Tiwari while Gudda Saxena prepares the strategy.
Akhilesh is up against Subrat Pathak who has come through the ranks of the BJP and defeated Dimple Yadav by 12,000 votes in 2019 to breach the SP fort. Subrat polled 5,63,087 votes (49.3%) and Dimple got 5,50,734 votes (48.29%).
The seat has equal number of Muslims, Yadavs and Brahmins (each around 16%), followed by 20% dalits & OBCs and 10% Lodh Rajputs.
This seat is a matter of prestige for both SP and BJP. As a final push, Akhilesh along with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, is set to address a joint rally here on May 10 (Friday).
VITAL STATS
MAY 13 date of polling in Kannauj
19.88 lakh voters
10.64 lakh male
9.24 lakh women
2 times Kannauj elected women candidates
7 times SP has won this seat
11 times a party with socialist ideology has won
2-2 times Cong and BJP have won this seat