Will ensure Dimple wins Mainpuri bypoll, Shivpal tells Akhilesh

Ahead of Mainpuri bypoll, family of Samajwadi Party founder late Mulayam Singh Yadav puts up united front in Jaswantnagar

In a rare show of strength ahead of the byelection to the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency, the family of Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh came together at a rally in Jaswantnagar on Monday, with Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohiya) leader and the local Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Shivpal Singh Yadav promising his nephew and SP president Akhilesh Yadav that he will not let him down. Mr. Shivpal also asserted that he will ensure the win of party candidate Dimple Yadav in the byelection. 

“I want to tell Akhilesh, I was associated with Netaji (Mulayam Singh) since childhood. Today he is not with us, hence this election is significant... we will have to ensure Dimple wins from here,” said Mr. Shivpal, who had a strained relationship with the SP president. The meeting in Jaswantnagar was attended by all the top leaders of the party.

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In the rally, the Jaswantnagar MLA added, “I have spent a lot of time with Netaji, I want to promise Akhilesh, the way I didn’t let Netaji down, I will also not let you down.” Samajwadi Party, the principal Opposition party in U.P., having witnessed a feud in its first family, is seeing them united for the first time after the Assembly election with all its politically active members including party president Akhilesh, national general secretary Ramgopal Yadav and former MPs Dharmendra Yadav and Tej Pratap Singh Yadav along with Mr. Shivpal campaigning for Ms. Dimple, who is the wife of the party supremo.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made Mainpuri a tough battleground for SP by naming former MP Raghuraj Singh Shakya as its candidate. The saffron party’s arithmetic behind Mr. Shakya’s candidature is that he belongs to the Shakya OBC community which constitutes the second-largest electorate after Yadavs in the parliamentary segment with roughly three lakh votes. The BJP has never won this stronghold of the SP.

Since 1996, the SP has emerged victorious in every Lok Sabha election in Mainpuri, making this a prestigious battle for the party. Despite an adverse electoral history against the SP, the BJP is still hopeful of breaching the citadel due to the relatively closer result in the 2019 parliamentary election and recent successes against SP in Azamgarh and Rampur bypolls. The byelection is scheduled on December 5 and counting of votes will take place on December 8.