Aggressive campaign marks shift in Akhilesh’s bypoll strategy

LUCKNOW: Known for a perceived reluctance to seek votes in by-elections, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav made an exception for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll and campaigned 20 days on the trot in the parliamentary constituency where voting will be held on Monday.

In a culmination of his Mission Mainpuri, Akhilesh Yadav will cast his vote at his village Saifai in Etawah district on Monday morning for the Lok Sabha bypoll. Thereafter, he is scheduled to reach Lucknow to join the Winter Session of the U.P. legislature beginning late in the morning.

The Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat fell vacant after the death of Akhilesh’s father, SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, on October 10. Mulayam’s daughter-inlaw and Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav, a former MP, is the party candidate in Mainpuri.

“Yes. Akhileshji had never been so aggressive in by-elections or in one constituency before. Not even when he contested his first election in 19992000 (the Kannauj LS by-election) or when Dimple Yadavji contested her first by-election in 2009 for the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat,” said a senior SP leader.

Since the day (November 14) Dimple Yadav filed her nomination papers, Akhilesh had been campaigning throughout the length and breadth of the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency that falls in two districts--Etawah and Mainpuri. He did not skip campaigning in Mainpuri even for a day, not even on December 1 when he went to Rampur to seek votes for the party candidate in the Rampur Sadar assembly bypolls.

Campaigning from morning to late evening, Akhilesh held rallies, road shows, public meetings, nukkad sabhas (street corner meetings), and jan-sampark (door-to-door) interactions.

Taking a dig at Akhilesh’s extensive electioneering, deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak said to newspersons on Saturday: “He used to say that he doesn’t campaign in by-elections. But now when his wife is contesting, he broke his vow.”.

SK Dwivedi, a political analyst and former head of the department of political science, at Lucknow University, said: “As an opposition leader or even otherwise, Akhilesh should be this aggressive always—general elections or by-elections, when in power or out of it.”

Earlier this year, Akhilesh drew fierce criticism when his party lost the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha bypolls for which he did not campaign in June. Besides, he did not campaign in the Gola Gokarnnath (Lakhimpur Kheri) assembly bypoll held on November 3.

Even in 2018, he had not campaigned in the bypolls in which the SP won the Gorakhpur, Phulpur, Kairana Lok Sabha, and Noorpur assembly seats.

The SP chief had also not canvassed in the 2019 bypolls for 11 assembly seats.

YADAV FAMILY TO VOTE AT BOOTH NO. 239 IN SAIFAI

Meanwhile, the SP’s Yadav family, including Akhilesh Yadav and Dimple Yadav, will cast their votes at booth number 239 at Abhinav Vidyalaya in Saifai for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha by-election on Monday. Saifai village is in Jaswant Nagar assembly segment of the Mainpuri parliamentary seat. Nearly 50 members of the Yadav family have their vote at this booth as did Mulayam Singh Yadav.

This is the first time the Yadav family will vote to send a woman family member to a legislature. Though Dimple Yadav, the SP’s Mainpuri candidate, had been elected MP from Kannauj before, the Yadav family members are not voters there.