Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav Likely To Contest UP Elections From Mainpuri’s Karhal: Report

Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav will contest from Mainpuri's Karhal Assembly Constituency in the upcoming UP assembly polls 2022

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav will contest the upcoming UP polls from Mainpuri’s Karhal Assembly constituency, news agency ANI reported quoting sources. Earlier, reports had also suggested that Akhilesh is likely to fight the upcoming election from Gunnaur constituency of Sambhal district which falls in western UP and considered to be party’s stronghold.

Akhilesh Yadav, who has never contested a state election, is the Lok Sabha MP from Azamgarh. In 2012, Yadav took the route of the Legislative Council, when he became the state chief minister.

Samajwadi Party Releases Second List of Candidates For UP Election 2022:

Earlier, on Saturday, the alliance of the Rashtriya Lok Dal and Samajwadi Party announced its second list of seven candidates for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.  All candidates are members of the Jayant Chaudhary-led RLD, according to the list shared by the party on social media. The alliance has fielded Rajpal Baliyan from Budhana and Chandan Chauhan from Meerapur, both in Muzaffarnagar district, and Ashraf Ali from Thana Bhawan in Shamli.

Surendra Kumar Munni has been fielded from Muradnagar in Ghaziabad district, Kiran Pal Singh from Shikarpur in Bulandshahr, Pramod Gaur from Barauli and Birpal Singh Diwakar from Iglas, both in Aligarh. All the seven seats, including Iglas which is reserved for SC candidates, were won by BJP nominees in the 2017 polls. The seats will go to polls on February 10 during the first phase of elections in the state.

The tie up had on Thursday announced its first list of 29 candidates of which 10 belonged to the SP and 19 to the RLD.

UP Elections 2022: Check Dates, Seats, 2017 Tally Below

Last week, the Election Commission of India had declared the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections 2022 schedule, announcing voting in seven phases on the following dates: February 10 (Thursday), February 14 (Monday), February 20 (Sunday), February 23 (Wednesday), February 27 (Sunday), March 3 (Thursday) and March 7 (Monday).

The Uttar Pradesh Assembly has a total of 403 seats, with 202 being the majority mark. These 403 constituencies are distributed across seven broad regions – West UP (44 constituencies), Ruhelkhand (52), Doab (73), Awadh (78), Bundelkhand (19), East UP (76) and North East UP (61).

To recall, in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections, the BJP registered a massive victory securing 312 seats, while the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party managed 47. Mayawati’s BSP had to contend with 19 seats and the Congress was relegated to the fourth spot with just seven seats.