Akhilesh’s debut will be a do-or-die battle for SP in third phase of voting

Lucknow: Trying his luck for the first time in an assembly election, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav will be looking to regain lost grounds in the Yadav belt even as the BJP strives to repeat its 2017 polls performance in the region. The third phase of UP Assembly Elections is on 59 seats spread across 16 districts of UP.

This includes 5 districts from Western UP: The region was once a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party (SP), which it swept in 2012, but the party performed its worst in this region in the 2017 Assembly Elections.

The SP won 37 out of the 59 seats in this region in the 2012 Assembly Elections. However, politics in this region took a new turn when the Yadav-dominated regions voted heavily for the BJP in 2017 elections. The BJP won 49 out of 59 seats while SP had to settle with only 8.

The BSP got one while Congress drew a blank from here. The hottest contest in the third phase is the election of former Chief Minister of UP Akhilesh Yadav, who has filed his nomination from the Karhal seat of Mainpuri district. Akhilesh Yadav went back and forth as far as his nomination filing is concerned.

The day when Aparna Yadav switched to the BJP, Akhilesh Yadav in a press conference first dropped hints on contesting from Azamgarh, which is another SP stronghold. Akhilesh, however, backtracked and instead filed his nomination from Karhal (Mainpuri).

One of the biggest reasons why SP suffered a setback in the region in 2017 was because of the raging internal tussle within the party.