All eyes will now be on the bypolls to Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat and Rampur assembly constituency as the Samajwadi Party faces the challenging task of retaining both the seats.
Both the constituencies will go to polls on December 5.
During the last five months, the SP has lost by-elections to two Lok Sabha seats and one assembly seat. The SP failed to retain the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats where bypolls were held in June. The Bharatiya Janata Party wrested both the seats from the SP.
The BJP on Sunday retained the Gola Gokarannath assembly seat also defeating its SP rival.
Moreover, the SP faces the challenging task of choosing a candidate for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat which fell vacant after the death of party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav on October 10 after prolonged illness.
While the Mainpuri parliamentary seat fell vacant following the demise of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Rampur assembly seat fell vacant because of the disqualification of SP MLA Mohammad Azam Khan following the three-year jail term awarded to him by the Rampur MP/MLA court in a 2019 hate speech case.
On both seats, the SP is likely to field family members – a Yadav in Mainpuri and a Khan in Rampur. On both seats, the SP has the advantage of sympathy factor -- the death of political icon Mulayam Singh Yadav and “injustice” at the hands of ruling BJP meted out to Azam Khan, but the challenge from the belligerent BJP is big.
Both Rampur assembly seat and Mainpuri Lok Sabha seats are bastions of the SP. The BJP could not win the Mainpuri seat in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections despite the Modi wave. The BJP also failed to make a dent in Rampur assembly seat in 2017 and 2022 UP Assembly polls and Azam Khan had won both the elections. Azam Khan, who had won the Rampur seat 10 times, lost the assembly elections only once in 1996.
SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary, when asked whom the party would field from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, said, “The party president will sit with the party top leaders and decide. But irrespective of whom the party fields, it will win both the seats.”
The Election Commission of India announced the elections on both seats on Saturday, but the name of Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, the grandnephew of Mulayam Singh Yadav and son-in-law of the Bihar former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, has been doing the rounds in the party circles since the day after Mulayam Singh Yadav passed away on October 10.
Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, 34, had won the same seat in 2014 Lok Sabha bypolls (when Mulayam vacated it to retain Azamgarh seat) during the time when Akhilesh Yadav was the UP Chief Minister. When Mulayam contested and won the Mainpuri seat in 2019, Tej Pratap was his election in-charge.
“This time the electoral battle in Mainpuri is going to be tough for the SP as the BJP is not only united it is also ruthless while the Yadav family is divided,” said a SP leader.