SP faces challenge of retaining Mainpuri, Rampur (Sadar) citadels

LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party (SP) now faces the challenge of retaining two of its citadels, the Mainpuri Lok Sabha and Rampur (Sadar) assembly seats, from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when bypolls are held on December 5.

The Akhilesh Yadav-led party had failed in a similar attempt in June when the BJP snatched the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats from it.

The Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat fell vacant after the death of its MP Mulayam Singh Yadav on October 10. The Rampur (Sadar) assembly seat was declared vacant because of the disqualification of SP leader Azam Khan following the three-year jail term awarded to him in a 2019 hate speech case.

The SP is likely to field family members of the two leaders — a Yadav in Mainpuri and a Khan in Rampur (Sadar).But the challenge from the BJP remains even though it had failed to win the Mainpuri Lok Sabha despite the Modi wave in the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP also could not win the Rampur (Sadar) seat in the 2017 and 2022 U.P. assembly polls.

When asked whom the SP would field, the party’s national secretary and state spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said: “The party’s national president will sit with the top leaders and decide. But irrespective of whom the party fields, it will win both the seats”.

The name of Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, the grandnephew of Mulayam and son-in-law of the Bihar former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, has been doing the rounds in the party circles.Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, 34, had won the Mainpuri seat in 2014 Lok Sabha bypolls when Mulayam vacated the seat to retain Azamgarh). At the time, Akhilesh Yadav was the U.P. chief minister. When Mulayam won the Mainpuri LS seat in 2019, Tej Pratap was his election in charge.

“The road now in Mainpuri would be difficult for the SP. The BJP is a united force, the Yadav family is divided,” said Sughar Singh ‘Saifai’ a local journalist in Saifai, Etawah.

Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Yadav has not been making his stance clear. There had been speculation that Shivpal had been wanting to project himself as inheritor of his elder brother Mulayam Singh Yadav’s political legacy.

With the bypoll declared for the seat, the PSP-L camp has been sending confusing signals —one that he might not contest the seat himself and is looking for the seat for his son and PSP-L state president Aditya Yadav.

There is also the indication that for the family’s sake, he would support Tej Pratap on the seat. Despite the rift between Shivpal and Akhilesh, Tej and Shivpal have maintained their original relationship. Shivpal is the sitting MLA from the Jaswant Nagar assembly seat. A large part of this assembly constituency is part of the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh is the MLA from Karhal, another assembly segment of Mainpuri. Shivpal also has a significant influence on the Mainpuri Sadar, Kishni and Bhogaon assembly segments.

Deepak Mishra, a PSP-L leader, said: “Shivpalji had said that the PSP-L parliamentary board will decide the party’s direction for the Mainpuri bypolls. Whatever Shivpalji will do would be in sync with and an honour to Netaji’s (Mulayam’s) political legacy”.

In Rampur (Sadar), it is likely that Azam would get his wife Tazeen Fatma or his daughterin-law (wife of Suar MLA Abdullah Azam) to contest.

Tazeen had won the seat in the 2019 assembly bypoll when Azam had vacated Rampur Sadar following his victory on the Rampur Lok Sabha seat. Although Tazeen, 73, is not keeping well, the Samajwadi Party has concluded that the party suffered a loss in the Rampur Lok Sabha bypoll by not fielding anyone from Azam’s family.