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Akhilesh hints at quitting Karhal, retaining Kannauj
SP president Akhilesh Yadav hints at quitting Karhal UP Assembly seat, retaining Kannauj parliamentary seat. Plans to strengthen party with new LoP in Vidhan Sabha.
Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday gave a broad hint that he would quit his Karhal (Mainpuri) UP Assembly seat and retain the Kannauj parliamentary seat.
Akhilesh’s hints came amid the speculations that the former Mainpuri MP Tej Pratap Yadav might contest the Karhal bypolls when they take place, and the new leader of opposition (LoP) in the Vidhan Sabha could be Indrajit Saroj or Shivpal Yadav.
Addressing newspersons in Saifai (Etawah), Akhilesh said, “I have met and consulted Karhal and Mainpuri party workers. I told those people now that I have won from two seats, I will have to quit one. Very soon, I will inform the Vidhan Sabha which seat I will quit.”
While this reply was still cryptic, Akhilesh’s follow-up reply indicated clearly that he will quit Karhal. When asked who will be the new LoP in the UP Vidhan Sabha, Akhilesh said: “That we will decide. The idea is that the decision should be such that it would further strengthen the party, further increase its vote-share”.
While this is the first time Akhilesh himself has talked about resignation from a seat, the SP secretary and chief spokesperson on Sunday had said that Akhilesh will retain Kannauj, will be the leader of SP MPs group in the Parliament, and will resign the Karhal assembly seat.
On Monday, Akhilesh paid tribute to late Mulayam Singh Yadav at his samadhi in Saifai, the ancestral village of the Yadav family. Akhilesh dedicated his victory in Kannauj and the party’s unprecedented win of 37 UP Lok Sabha seats to Mulayam.
The SP emerged as the single largest party in the just concluded 2024 Lok Sabha polls while the BJP with 33 seats ended up second. The SP also emerged as the third largest party in the parliament in the country after the BJP and the Congress.
“Modi’s latest cabinet nothing new except for date and year”
On Tuesday, Akhilesh said that the latest cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no different from the previous ones except for the date and year.
“There is nothing new except for the date and the year,” he told reporters in Saifai, in Etawah district, while talking about the Modi 3.0 government.
The SP chief said his party is carrying forward the ideas and thoughts of socialist Ram Manohar Lohia, B R Ambedkar, and Netaji, as the party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav is often referred to.
He said that his party’s MPs will raise issues faced by the masses in Parliament whenever the next session begins. He thanked party workers saying it was “due to them the SP had become the number three party in the country.”
“The 2024 poll is a victory of what matters to the people,” said Akhilesh, whose party had allied with the Congress to forge the INDIA bloc to take on the BJP.
