AMN
Samajwadi Party candidate Dimple Yadav has won from Manpuri Parliamentary seat in Uttar Pradesh. She defeated Raghuraj Singh of the BJP by a margin of over two lakh eighty-eight thousand votes.
The seat was vacated following the death of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh’s father, in October. Challenging her was the BJP’s Raghuraj Singh Shakya, said to be a former close associate of Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal Yadav.
“Voters have endorsed the politics of Netaji (his father) and development he did in Mainpuri, we will take it forward. The administration created pressure but voters defied it,” Akhilesh Yadav said, taking a dig at the Yogi Adityanath government.
Alleging injustice against SP candidate in Rampur, he said: “If it had been fair election in Rampur, it would have been a historic win.”
Rampur has been bastion of the SP’s Azam Khan. Mainpuri is giving a “message for the 2024 election,” he stressed, and added: “Followers of Dr Ambedkar and Lohia ensured our victory in Mainpuri.” Thanking uncle Shivpal Yadav for standing with them, he said with the merger with his uncle’s party with the SP, “We will fight inflation and corruption.”
In 2019 Lok Sabha election, Mulayam Singh Yadav – also called Netaji by his admirers- had won by margin of 94,000 votes when even the BSP was in alliance with his party and he had declared it his last election. He had won the seat five times before that.