Akhilesh Yadav to contest LS polls from Kannauj

In a surprise decision, Akhilesh Yadav (SP) has decided to contest LS polls from Kannauj.

The SP had previously announced the candidature of Akhilesh's nephew, Tej Pratap Yadav, from Kannauj. The Kannauj Lok Sabha seat has been a bastion of the SP chief's family. Akhilesh had made his Lok Sabha debut from Kannauj in a 2000 bypoll and retained the seat in the 2004 and 2009 general elections. Akhilesh's wife, Dimple Yadav, had won the seat in a 2012 bypoll and retained it in 2014 before losing it to the BJP by a slender margin in the 2019 polls.

The BJP has re-nominated incumbent MP Subrat Pathak, who had defeated Dimple in 2019, from Kannauj. Prior to Pathak's 2019 victory, the BJP had last won the Kannauj seat in 1996. Akhilesh's father and SP founder, the late Mulayam Singh Yadav, too, has been an MP from the seat; winning it in 1999.

The constituency, which first came into existence in 1967, has a special place for the SP and in UP's samajwadi (Socialist) movement since it was first won by Socialist icon Ram Manohar Lohia.

The Congress, which was the principal rival of the Socialist parties of UP then, has won the seat only twice since 1967, first in 1971 when it elected SN Mishra and then in 1984 when Sheila Dikshit made her successful electoral debut from there.