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UP polls: BJP fields Union minister SP Baghel against Akhilesh in Karhal seat
The BJP on Monday fielded Union minister of state SP Singh Baghel as its candidate from the Karhal assembly seat against SP chief Akhilesh Yadav in the upcoming UP elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday fielded Union minister of state SP Singh Baghel as its candidate from the Karhal assembly seat against Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections.
Karhal assembly seat, which is part of Mainpuri parliamentary constituency, was once represented by SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. The SP founder represents Mainpuri in the Lok Sabha. A former Uttar Pradesh police sub-inspector, Baghel was once a security officer of former CM Mulayam Singh Yadav, who brought him into politics.
This is the second time Baghel will be contesting against Akhilesh, the first occasion being the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Firozabad. Baghel is the Lok Sabha MP from Agra and the MoS for law and justice.
The SP chief is also Baghel’s third poll rival from the Yadav family in the last 13 years. He has previously contested against Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav in the 2009 Firozabad Lok Sabha by-election and Mulayam’s cousin Ram Gopal Yadav’s son Akshay in the 2014 Lok Sabha election from the same constituency. Baghel lost on both occasions.
Voting for Karhal assembly seat will take place in the third of the seven-phase election in Uttar Pradesh on February 20.
“Baghel will win. Akhilesh ji will now do well to ensure that he wins even as many seats as he did in 2017,” said state’s deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, while campaigning in Bhogaon, an assembly seat in Mainpuri that the BJP had won in 2017.
Speaking to reporters after filing his nomination on Monday, shortly after Akhilesh filed his papers, Baghel said he will “give a tough fight to Akhilesh”.
The BJP also fielded Vivek Shakya from Jaswant Nagar in Etawah and Manoj Prajapati from Hamirpur.
