Samajwadi Party chief and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh’s Kannauj seat, the party said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), adding that he will file the nomination papers on Thursday.
This comes two days after SP declared Tej Pratap Yadav-Akhilesh Yadav’s nephew and son-in-law of RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav- as its candidate from the seat for which nominations will start from April 25. However, Akhilesh Yadav earlier today stoked speculation that he might himself contest from the constituency.
Akhilesh Yadav won the Kannauj seat in 2000. Later, he represented the seat in 2004 and 2009. The SP chief left the seat in 2012 after he became the chief minister. Following this, his wife Dimple Yadav won the by-election unopposed. In 2014, Dimple won the Kannauj seat but lost it to the BJP in 2019.
Voting on the Kannauj seat will be held in the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha election on May 13. The result for the same will be declared on June 4.
With Akhilesh Yadav, a total of five Yadav family members are contesting Lok Sabha elections – Dimple Yadav from Mainpuri, Akshay Yadav from Firozabad, Aditya Yadav from Badaun, and Dharmendra Yadav from Azamgarh.
The SP and Congress are in a seat-sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh. The Akhilesh Yadav-led party is contesting on 63 seats in the state, while the Congress is contesting on 17 seats.
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