Lucknow: The Congress party has decided that it will not field any candidate from Karhal, Uttar Pradesh. This means the Congress is fielding no candidates against the Samajwadi Party president and former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav on Karhal and Jaswant Nagar assembly seats where the deadline for filing nominations ended Tuesday (February 1, 2022). "So we didn't file nomination today. The seat was on hold," said Manish Shah, AICC-Coordinator of Mainpuri.
A Congress party spokesperson said the party pitted no candidates against the two in a reciprocal gesture of the SP which too had fielded no one on Rae Bareilly and Amethi Lok Sabha seats against INC leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the 2019 general elections.
Congress' Etawah district unit president Malkhan Singh said the local unit had sent a list of six names for the Jaswant Nagar seat but the party high command did not approve of any name for the constituency. UP Congress general secretary Prakash Pradhan said the top leadership of the party had directed that since SP patriarch Mulayam Singh did not field any candidate against our leaders, the party too would field no one against Akhilesh Yadav in Karhal.
The Congress party had earlier declared Gyanwati Yadav as its candidate for the Karhal assembly seat but after Akhilesh Yadav filed his nomination there, the party decided to withdraw her candidature, Pradhan said.
Akhilesh Yadav is contesting the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls for the first time from Karhal, falling within the Lok Sabha constituency Mainpuri held by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. Shivpal Singh Yadav is in the fray on the Jaswant Nagar seat for the sixth time. Both the seats will go to the polls on February 20 in the third phase of the seven-phase UP assembly elections.
Meanwhile, Congress released the list of star campaigners for the second phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections to be held on February 14. The list of 30 leaders of Congress campaigners included the names of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sachin Pilot, among others.
Polling across Uttar Pradesh’s 403 constituencies will take place in seven phases starting from February 10 to March 7. The counting of votes in all states will take place on March 10.
In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP won a landslide victory winning 312 Assembly seats. The party secured a 39.67 per cent vote share in the elections for 403-member Assembly. Samajwadi Party (SP) bagged 47 seats, BSP won 19 while Congress could manage to win only seven seats.
(With Agency inputs)
