Lok Sabha Election 2024: Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav to contest polls From UP's Kannauj

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is set to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj, and will file the nomination papers on Thursday.

Akhilesh’s party made the announcement in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Kannauj was a Samajwadi Party stronghold until the BJP's Subrat Pathak won it by fewer than 14,000 votes in 2019. The seat was won by Akhilesh Yadav's wife in a bypoll in 2012. She retained it in the 2014 election, but lost it to Pathak five years later. Mrs Yadav was later fielded from Mainpuri in the 2022 bypoll due to the death of Mulayam Singh Yadav. She won by nearly three lakh votes.

The seat has also allowed Akhilesh to enter Parliament thrice and also voted for his wife, Dimple Yadav, and late Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Akhilesh, who has been a former UP Chief Minister has won the Azamgarh seat in 2019, but quit after he was elected to the UP Assembly from Karhal in 2022.

Earlier, it was announced that Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, will be the candidate for the seat but now he will not contest. Tej Pratap Yadav is Akhilesh Yadav's nephew; he is the grandson of Mulayam Yadav's brother Ranveer, and won the Mainpuri seat in the 2014 election.

According to sources, the switch happened because of the discontent among SP workers on the ground, who wanted the party boss to contest the family seat. Mr Yadav had originally opted against contesting this election since he wanted time to plan the overall strategy.

Kannauj will vote in the fourth phase of the 2024 election which is on May 13. Results for all seven phases - the first was on April 19, the second will be on Friday - will be declared on June 4.

UP's 80 Lok Sabha seats makes it a crucial battleground for the elections, especially BJP's 'abki baar, 400 paar' efforts.