Akhilesh Yadav Steps up SP’s Bid for Yadav Dominations once again

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will contest from Kannauj as the party aims to reclaim its Yadav strongholds from BJP, fielding family members in Mainpuri, Firozabad and Badaun as well.

Through a massive forging ahead to take back Samajwadi Party's long standing bastions, party chief Akhilesh Yadav will contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Kannauj a seat he has won three times before. The masking of parliaments by BJP and its entry into the SP's Yadav vote bank over the last decade compel him to take the plunge.

The Yadav family has put all its pressure behind the Yadav belt in western Uttar Pradesh and reclaimed the key territories. Akhilesh's wife Dimple Yadav is contesting Mainpuri seat, whereas his cousins Akshay and Aditya are contesting from Firozabad and Badaun respectively.

"Our base was shaken from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls where we lost three of our bastions - Firozabad, Badaun and my former seat Kannauj. And no one wants to go back to that, agreed Akhilesh, giving reasons for his shift from state politics to the national stage."

While the SP had bucked the Modi wave to win all the seats from the Yadav belt in 2014, it does not enjoy the same dominance now. But in 2019 BJP's Subrat Patkh out casted Dimple by more than 12,000 votes in Kannauj. Pathak has been re-nominated. And, he has dared Akhilesh to "catch the bull" (Kannauj) if he can.

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For the SP supremo, Kannauj is somewhat of a homecoming since he started his political journey in Kannauj. He won his first Lok Sabha election from the scented city of Agra in 2000 and remained undefeated in 2004 and 2009 until he handed over the seat to Dimple.

While the potato farmers are facing procurement issues, Akhilesh is capitalizing on the farmers' discontent to fight BJP. The yellow party, however, is confident about sustaining the Yadav votebank gains that were made in the past year, especially through giving back through infrastructure and welfare projects.