NEW DELHI: Kannauj saw a reversal of fortunes when Samajwadi supremo Akhilesh Yadav uprooted last election’s giant slayer, Subrat Pathak, defeating him by 1,70,922 votes.
It was in the same constituency that Pathak defeated Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav in the last general elections of 2019. The supporters of Akhilesh Yadav see this victory as a sweet revenge.
Meanwhile, Dimple Yadav defeated Jaiveer Singh of the BJP by 2,21,639 votes to become the new MP from Mainpuri, the family Lok Sabha seat of Samajwadi Party held earlier by the party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.
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Having a mixture of the population of Yadavs, Muslims, Brahmins, Rajputs, and others, the land of Perfumes famous for its Ittar (Perfume ) shops, has since long been a bastion of the Samajwadi Party. Since 1999, Kannauj has seen various members of SP as representatives beginning with patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and later his son Akhilesh Yadav, whose wife Dimple Yadav was the last MP from Samajwadi Party from Kannauj in 2014.
Akhilesh Yadav, the youngest person to become the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, is currently a Member of the Legislative Assembly from Karhal, Uttar Pradesh. Since he has become an MP from Kannauj, he’ll now have to resign from the Uttar Pradesh assembly.
Dimple Yadav has been 3 times Member of Parliament. Her first term included winning a by-poll from Kannauj Lok Sabha Constituency in 2012, then completing a full five-year term from the same constituency till 2019. Thereafter, she lost the election to Subrat Pathak in 2019 and later won the by-election from Mainpuri after the death of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2022.
Kannauj has always been a high-profile seat. It has seen socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohiya as the first MP from Kannauj. Later, former Delhi CM Sheela Dixit represented Kannauj in the year 1984.
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