Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Lok Sabha election from Azamgarh constituency.
The Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat is presently held by his father and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The SP on Sunday also announced Mohammad Azam Khan as its candidate from Rampur Lok Sabha seat. This is being seen as an attempt by the SP to mobilise Muslim votes as the Congress has fielded Muslim faces in western UP.
In the 2014 parliamentary election, Mulayam Singh Yadav had also contested from Mainpuri seat. He was declared elected from both Mainpuri and Azamgarh seats but decided to retain Azamgarh.
Akhilesh Yadav’s decision to contest from Azamgarh is a direct replacement of his father in the constituency but also a strategic move to bolster the party’s hopes in the crucial east UP region in which lie Varanasi and Gorakhpur, both important centres for the BJP.
Azamgarh has a substantial population of Yadavs, Jatavs and Muslims, the three communities who form the crux of the SP-BSP alliance in UP. While Yadavs are the most dominant OBC caste, Jatavs are more than 56% of the state’s Dalit population and traditionally are believed to be loyal to their leader Mayawati.
Since 1996, only Muslims and Yadavs have won the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat. Ramakant Yadav won the seat as an SP candidate in 1996 and 1999, as BSP candidate in 2004 and on BJP ticket in 2009. He was runner-up in 2014, when the SP founder defeated him by 63,000 votes. Akbar Ahmed Dumpy won the seat as a BSP candidate in 1998 and then the 2008 by-election.
In 2014, the combined vote percentage of the SP and BSP in Azamgarh was over 63% compared to the 28.8% of BJP candidate Ramakant Yadav, who enjoys considerable clout locally, especially among the Yadavs who view him as a symbol of resistance against the dominant Thakur community.
The Muslim factor is even more important in Rampur, with a little over 50% of the district population comprising the minority community. Since 1980, Muslim candidates have won the Rohilkhand seat six times, the last time in 1999.
The BJP has won this seat thrice. In 2014, its candidate Nepal Singh defeated a divided opposition and was ahead of second-placed SP candidate by 23,000 votes. The combined vote of the SP and BSP was over 43% in 2014. The BJP had polled 37.43% votes and the Congress 16%.
The Congress and the SP have also won the seat in the past. In 1996 and 1999, Noor Bano of the Rampur royal house won the seat as Congress candidate while Jaya Prada won it as an SP candidate in 2004 and 2009.
