Samajwadi Party president and former chief minister of UP, Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting from the Karhal assembly constituency in Mainpuri district, will file his nomination papers at Mainpuri district collectorate on Monday.
Other SP candidates will also file their nominations along with Akhilesh Yadav on Monday.
The Yadav dominated Karhal assembly constituency is the pocket borough of the Samajwadi party and is a few kilometres away from Saifai, the native town of the first family of the SP in Etawah district.
Akhilesh Yadav will contest the assembly election for the first time from the Karhal assembly seat. He is presently MP from Azamgarh.
"Akhilesh Yadav will reach the collectorate on January 31 and file his nomination papers. Preparations are almost complete to file the nominations of three other SP candidates with him," SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said.
He said that the people of Karhal wanted Akhilesh Yadav to contest the election from this constituency. He claimed that it would be a one sided contest in Karhal and Akhilesh Yadav would win the election by a huge margin.
Akhilesh Yadav will move from Saifai by road and reach the district headquarters via Karhal for filing his nomination. On the way, there is also a possibility of a huge public gathering for his first-time nomination in the assembly election.
Rajendra Chaudhary said, “The nomination process will be a low key affair as per the Covid protocol and the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India.”
Polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7. Voting in Mainpuri will be held in the third phase of the polls and the nomination process has started. Samajwadi Party has a stronghold in Karhal since 1993 till today. Only once, in 2002, the SP had to face defeat in this constituency.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has not yet announced its candidate from the Karhal assembly seat. There are speculations that the BJP may field someone from the Yadav family -- Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav, who recently joined the BJP – from Karhal.
