Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav To Contest Lok Sabha Polls From UP’s Kannauj

Lucknow: 

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Uttar Pradesh’s Kannauj – the seat that sent him to Parliament thrice and also voted for his wife, Dimple Yadav, and Mulayam Singh Yadav, the late SP patriarch – his party said Wednesday in a post on X.

Mr Yadav, a former UP Chief Minister, will file his papers at noon tomorrow, the SP said. He also won the Azamgarh seat in 2019, but quit after he was elected to the UP Assembly from Karhal in 2022.

Speculation the SP leader will return to the Lok Sabha battlefield had been doing the rounds. Earlier today SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav was quoted as saying the decision had been taken.Mr Yadav’s proverbial homecoming will mean SP leader Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, who was named as the candidate earlier this week – will not contest. Tej Pratap Yadav is Akhilesh Yadav’s nephew; he is the grandson of Mulayam Yadav’s brother Ranveer, and won the Mainpuri seat in the 2014 election.