 "Lok Sabha polls: Akhilesh Yadav regains lost turf, family sweeps 4 UP seats")
Lok Sabha polls: Five members of the Yadav family from the Samajwadi Party contested the ongoing Lok Sabha elections this time. The final results on the Election Commission's website showed that party Chief Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple Yadav have won the Kannauj and Mainpuri constituencies respectively.
Akhilesh won in Kannauj by a margin of 170,992 votes, the EC data showed.
Meanwhile, Dimple Yadav has won the SP bastion Mainpuri by a margin of over 200,000 votes. With her win, Dimple has secured the legacy of her father-in-law and late SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. She had won the seat during the 2022 Mainpuri by-elections after the seat was vacated following Mulayam Singh Yadav’s death.
More From This Section
Exit polls had predicted an edge for Akhilesh in Kannauj, the former stronghold of the Samajwadi Party (since 1998), which Dimple lost to sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subrat Pathak in 2019. She had won the seat in 2014.
Besides the SP power couple, other members of Yadav family who contested the Lok Sabha elections are Dharmendra Yadav from Azamgarh, Akshaya Yadav from Firozabad, and Aditya Yadav from Badaun.
Dharmendra is Akhilesh’s cousin and contested the polls to snatch the Azamgarh seat from incumbent BJP MP and singer Dinesh Lal Yadav, popularly known as Nirauha. Dharmendra has won the seat by a margin of 161,035 votes.
Firozabad Lok Sabha seat is yet another former SP stronghold lost to the BJP in 2019. The SP has won the seat for three consecutive times since 1999 and also in 2014. A former MP from here, Akshaya won this seat by a margin of 89,000 votes. He lost the seat in 2019 by a narrow margin and has been renominated to reclaim it against BJP’s Vishwadeep Singh. Akshaya is the son of Ram Gopal Yadav, Mulayam Yadav’s cousin and Secretary-General of the Samajwadi Party. Akshaya Yadav’s 2019 loss was attributed to a vote split caused by his uncle Shivpal Yadav’s independent candidacy.
Firozabad is one of the constituencies where the BJP has replaced its sitting MP. The seat was won by MP Chandrasen Jadon in 2019. BJP’s candidate Singh, who started his political career with the Bahujan Samaj Party, joined the saffron party in 2022. He had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections unsuccessfully.
Aditya is the son of senior SP leader Shivpal Yadav and is facing BJP’s Durvijay Singh Shakya. The SP candidate, who was earlier trailing, won the Badaun seat by nearly 35,000 votes.
The SP is contesting the polls in UP jointly with the INDIA bloc partner Congress and Trinamool Congress. While the Congress is contesting 17 seats, the SP has taken the responsibility of winning 62 seats, a significant goal compared to its 2019 Lok Sabha election performance when it won just five seats.