UP Election 2022: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav to contest polls, says source
The SP president had previously stated that he would not run in the state's forthcoming Assembly elections instead of focusing on his party's campaign. The party has yet to pick which constituency Yadav would run in.
Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party's chief and MP from Azamgarh, will run in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2022, according to a party source. The SP president had previously stated that he would not run in the state's forthcoming Assembly elections instead of focusing on his party's campaign. The party has yet to pick which constituency Yadav would run in.
Akhilesh Yadav will hold a news conference at the party office in Lucknow at 1 pm on Wednesday. He is expected to provide additional information about his seat and the party's goals ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections. The Azamgarh MP has never run in a state election, not even in 2012. When he became the country's youngest chief minister in 2012, he chose the Legislative Council path.
Elections for the 403 members of the state Assembly will be conducted in seven stages in Uttar Pradesh on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, and March 3 and 7. This would be Yadav's first time running in an Assembly election.
The reports of the SP head running for office came only days after the BJP declared that Yogi Adityanath, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, would run for office for the first time.
Adityanath will run in the state's next elections from his hometown of Gorakhpur, which he has represented in Lok Sabha many times until 2017.
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The BJP gained 312 Assembly seats in the 2017 Assembly elections, a landslide victory. In the elections for the 403-member Assembly, the party received 39.67% of the vote. The Samajwadi Party (SP) won 47 seats, the BSP won 19, while the Congress received only seven votes.
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