Akhilesh Yadav to contest Lok Sabha polls from UP's Kannauj

Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Lok Sabha elections from his erstwhile constituency of Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh. He is expected to file his nomination papers tomorrow.

"Honorable National President Shri Akhilesh Yadav will file nomination papers as Samajwadi Party candidate from Kannauj Lok Sabha tomorrow at 12 noon," the party said in a post on X.

Two days ago, the SP had named Tej Pratap Yadav as its candidate from the seat, for which nominations will start on Thursday.

Tej Pratap was the SP MP from Mainpuri between 2014 and 2019. He is Akhilesh Yadav's nephew and also the son-in-law of RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav.

The switch in candidates is said be the result of a demand from the cadre that the party chief contest the family seat.

Kannauj had been a Samajwadi Party stronghold until the previous parliamentary election.

Akhilesh had won from the seat for the first time in 2000. Later, he represented the constituency in 2004 and 2009. He left the seat after he became chief minister in 2012, and his wife Dimple Yadav won the by-election unopposed. Later, Dimple won from the seat in 2014 but she lost to BJP's Subrat Pathak in 2019.

The party chief getting down in the battlefield sends a clear message that SP intends to win back its bastion.

"The question here is of historic victory from the seat. The BJP will become history in this election as people have made up their mind for INDIA bloc. People are going to vote against the NDA. PDA (picchde, Dalit, alpsankhyak) will defeat the NDA this time," Akhilesh said, hours before the announcement was made.

Kannauj will vote in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections on May 13.