NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party (SP) founder and supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who died at the age of 80 in a hospital in Gurugram on Monday, was a sitting member of Lok Sabha from Mainpuri constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
The seat has fallen vacant with his death. The immediate challenge before SP, led by Mulayam’s son Akhilesh Yadav, would be to retain Mainpuri in the byelection which should be held within six months.
The next challenge before SP would be to win the seat also in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as it has proved to be the party’s strongest citadel.
SP, founded in 1992, has kept the Mainpuri seat with itself in Parliament since 1996, winning all the seven Lok Sabha elections since that year. It also won two byelections here.
Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat
Mulayam was an MLA 10 times and an MP seven times.
Out of these seven occasions, he won from Mainpuri five times since 1996.
He won his first Lok Sabha election in 1996 and it was from Mainpuri. He became India’s defence minister that year.
He won the second Lok Sabha term in 1998 from Sambhal. He contested the 1999 Lok Sabha election both from Sambhal and Kannauj. He resigned the Kannauj seat and retained Sambhal in his third term as MP.
While being the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, he contested the 2004 Lok Sabha election from Mainpuri and won. However, he soon resigned to continue as CM.
He won the fifth term as MP in 2009. It was again from Mainpuri.
In 2014, Mulayam won his sixth term from both Azamgarh and Mainpuri constituencies. However, he gave up Mainpuri and kept Azamgarh.
His last election was in 2019 from Mainpuri which he won. It was his seventh term as a Lok Sabha MP.
Out of seven times, he did not contest from Mainpuri only on two occasions – in 1998 and 1999. Balram Singh Yadav from SP won on both the occasions.
Despite winning from Mainpuri in 2004 and 2014, Mulayam resigned the seat on both the occasions.
In 2004, Dharmendra Yadav, son of Mulayam’s younger brother Abhay Ram Yadav, contested the bypoll and won.
In 2014, it was Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, grandson of Mulayam’s elder brother Ratan Singh Yadav who contested the byelection and won.
However, this is not the case with some other Lok Sabha seats which Mulayam had also won.
SP has already lost Kannauj and Azamgarh – the two other bastions which Mulayam had represented in the Lok Sabha. Both these seats are now with the BJP.
Sambhal is one constituency which at present is with SP.
But Mainpuri and Azamgarh remain SP’s fort.
SP won only five out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
SP’s five seats in 2014 were Firozabad (won by Akshay Yadav), Mainpuri (won by Tej Pratap Singh Yadav), Badaun (won by Dharmendra Yadav), Kannauj (won by Mulayam’s daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav) and Azamgarh (won by Mulayam himself).
It was the time when SP was governing UP and Akhilesh was the CM.
In 2019, the five seats that SP won were Azamgarh (Akhilesh), Mainpuri (Mulayam), Moradabad (ST Hasan), Rampur (Azam Khan) and Sambhal (Shafiqur Rehman Barq).
Azamgarh
Azamgarh is also considered to be an SP bastion. Of the seven elections since 1996, the party has won it in 1996, 1999, 2014 and 2019.
Ramakant Yadav won the seat in 1996 and 1999 while Mulayam won the seat in 2014 and Akhilesh won it in 2019.
Akhilesh contested the 2022 UP assembly election in 2022. After SP lost to the BJP led by chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Akhilesh resigned his Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat to focus on state politics.
He retained the Karhal assembly seat, which falls in the Yadav stronghold of Mainpuri, and became the leader of opposition in the UP assembly. Akhilesh became an MLA for the first time. Earlier, he had become an MLC when he became the UP CM.
In a jolt to SP, the party lost the 2022 byelection from Azamgarh after Akhilesh vacated it. The seat was won by Dinesh Lal Yadav of the BJP. He defeated Dharmendra Yadav of SP by a margin of about 8,000 votes
The seat is no more with SP now.
Kannauj
Kannauj is also one of SP’s bastions. Mulayam won the 1999 Lok Sabha election but soon resigned as he had also won the Sambhal seat and decided to retain it.
Akhilesh won the bypoll held in 2000. He went on to win it again in 2004 and 2009. However, he resigned the seat in 2012 after he took over as UP CM.
His wife Dimple won the bypoll from the seat. She also won the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Kannauj.
However, SP faced a reversal in 2019. Subrat Pathak of the BJP trounced Dimple by about 13,000 votes.
SP has also lost this bastion of Kannauj to the BJP.
Sambhal
Mulayam won the seat in 1998 and 1999 while his younger brother Ram Gopal Yadav won it in 2004.
However, Shafiqur Rahman Barq, then with BSP, wrested the seat from SP in 2009.
Satyapal Singh Saini of the BJP won the seat in 2014.
Barq shifted from BSP to SP and won the 2019 Lok Sabha election by defeating Parmeshwar Lal Saini of the BJP.
Meanwhile, SP has also lost the Rampur Lok Sabha seat which its Azam Khan had won in 2019. Like Akhilesh, Khan too won the 2022 UP assembly election and decided to become an MLA.
BJP’s Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi defeated Mohd Asim Raza of SP in the 2022 bypoll.
Of the five seats which SP had won in 2019, it has already lost two – Azamgarh and Rampur. ST Hasan represents Moradabad while Barq represents Sambhal. With Mulayam’s death, SP’s tally has reduced from five to two.
Winning Mainpuri in the byelection would be a matter of prestige for SP and Akhilesh.
