The SP has fielded Dimple Yadav, wife of former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav from Mainpuri Shafiqur Rahman Barq from Sambhal, and Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow.

Dimple Yadav of the Samajwadi Party won the Mainpuri parliamentary byelection in December 2022, defeating Raghuraj Singh Shakya of the BJP by a margin of 2,88,461 votes.

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Considered as SP’s bastion, the seat was held by party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and it was vacated after his death on October 10. Akshay Yadav has been fielded from Firozabad, while from Banda, the SP has fielded Shivshakar Singh Patel.

Barq who at 93 is one of the oldest Parliamentarians has been elected 5 times to the Lok Sabha from Sambhal. “Hoga PDA ke naam, abki ekjut matdan,” the SP said.

In the current Lok Sabha, the SP, which had fought in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2019, has three MPs while the BSP has 10 MPs. Sonia Gandhi, who represents the Rae Bareli seat, is the lone Congress MP from the State.

On January 19, the SP and RLD announced their alliance for the Lok Sabha election, with SP leaving seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh for the RLD. The SP has offered 11 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh to the Congress.

Akhilesh Yadav’s Statement

Samajwadi Party (SP) president and former U.P. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Saturday, said that their “alliance” is off to a good start in the State. Both the Congress and the SP are members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), formed to take on the BJP-led Centre.

“Our cordial alliance with the Congress is off to a good start with 11 strong seats. This trend will move forward with the winning equation. ‘INDIA’ team and ‘PDA’ (Picchda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) strategy will change history,” Yadav said in a post on X.

Source: ANI

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