Akhilesh Yadav's returns to Kannauj to reclaim family legacy during tense electoral battle

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won from Kannauj, Badaun and Firozabad in the 2019 general elections. Only Mulayam Singh Yadav won from Mainpuri. But in 2014, SP had won all four seats despite a Narendra Modi wave. The loss of Kannauj in particular hurt the SP and Akhilesh Yadav the most; never before had the SP lost the seat since it contested in the constituency for the first time, with the Yadav-Muslim alliance dominating it since 1998.

The party won the seat a record seven times in a row as the senior Yadav inherited the legacy of Ram Manohar Lohia, the first MP from his seat and for whom Yadav had campaigned in 1967. Over the years, he nurtured the seat, which became the family’s bastion.

He won the seat in 1999 in Mainpuri, which he continued to represent, and left Kannauj for his son. Senior journalist Anurag Tripathi was among the journalists who had reported on the handover at a rally addressed by the senior Yadav in Kannauj.

The SP chief introduced a shy and soft-spoken Akhilesh Yadav sitting at his feet. "Main ladka dekar jaa raha hoon, isko sansad sadasya bana dena (I'm bringing you my son, please ensure he reaches the Parliament)," Mulayam famously said to the audience as party leader Azam Khan almost dragged Akhilesh to the masses in 2000, Tripathi recalled.

Akhilesh won the seat three times in 1999, 2004 and 2009, each time margin of victory going up, before giving up the seat to become the youngest chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at 38 years. His wife filled in as the next MP, unopposed between 2012-14. She barely scraped through the 2014 elections, which she won by just 20,000 votes. The BJP had closed the gap and breached the SP fort in 2019 by 12000 votes.

After the death of Mulayam Singh in October 2022 at the age of 82, this would be the first time Akhilesh returns as a candidate from Kannauj amid a looming question: Will he be able to reclaim the legacy of his father after his passing away?

This explains why he chose to contest again, even though he had earlier stated that he would remain in the state assembly ahead of the 2027 assembly elections. In an indication of his true intentions, the SP chief, however, had been regularly visiting Kannauj after the 2022 elections, dropping hints to the party cadre about his return while rectifying the mistakes made in 2019 and 2022 in five assembly constituencies.

To be doubly sure about the ground realities, Yadav, two days before the nomination, announced the candidacy of Tej Pratap Yadav, son-in-law of Lalu Prasad Yadav. The decision created a sensation, and leaders of his party reached Lucknow pressing him to change his decision.

On April 26, he ended all speculations and filed his nomination papers. The BJP's sitting MP Subrat Pathak who'd defeated Dimple Yadav in 2019 too filed his nomination.

The first thing Akhilesh did was take out a 40 km long roadshow from Rasoolabad in Kanpur Dehat to Tirwa – the two assembly constituencies responsible for the loss of the 2019 elections. His uncle Shivpal's rebellion had cost him some real ground operators – like former Shiv Kumar Beria and Kuldeep Yadav in Rasoolabad. Some Yadav leaders were thrown out in Tirwa.

Beria and Yadav both have made a comeback in the party fold. But the party leader Akhilesh was working on the weak spots for two years – he worked on cobbling together a new social equation the 'the Pichda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak' or the PDA, his father first experimented with Bahujan Samaj Party founder in 1993.

Kannauj, which elected Yadavs ten times in the last 16 elections has 4.75 lakh Muslims and Yadavs. But the real problem before the SP is about lacking a Brahmin face, the community makes up about 9% of the population.

Yadav appointed Shyam Lal Pal as the new state president of his party replacing Naresh Uttam Patel. Pal is active in Tirwa. "SP lost four assembly constituencies, Rasoolabad, Tirwa, Chibramau, and Kannauj Sadaer to BJP by a total of 16,000 votes. This is where the focus has been to make sure the division of votes is solidly checked with the PDA line," said Rajan Mishra, a political observer in Kannauj.

In his run so far, Yadav has managed to push his preference not to be perceived as a leader entrenched in Muslim-Yadav politics, but as a leader fostering a wider coalition, including Dalits and OBCs. At the time of his nomination filing his choice of proposers clearly indicated his strategy – three of four were Dalits and OBCs, and one was Muslim.

In his last three outings in Kannauj, Yadav has held meetings with key families and three rallies, to firm up booth management and remind the masses of his father's legacy. In the rally with Rahul Gandhi in Kannauj, Akhilesh largely restricted to anecdotes about his political journey with his father in Kannauj.

"Whether I have contested the elections from here or not, I never left the people of Kannauj," he said.

His extra careful approach stems from the fact that the rival Pathak has been trying to polarise the elections. He already has likened the contest to the one between India and Pakistan.

After Yadav went to pray at the Gauri Shankar temple early this week, the BJP workers washed it with Ganga water, in a bid to "purify" the premises. The 108 Brahmin leaders who recently conducted the 'Shat Chandi' recitation for Yadav's victory in a Ganga ghat temple, suddenly have a volte-face. Their spokesman Pandit Sachin Tiwari appeared before the media to assert that they support the party that brought Ram Lalla to Ayodhya while distancing itself from the SP.

Pathak, whom Union home minister Amit Shah described as his good friend to raising his profile in this contest at a rally in Kannauj, has had his own fair share of controversies in the last five years. The face of Hindutva in Kannauj, Pathak recently had a heated exchange with influential Brahmin leader Kanhaiya Dixit.

In Tirwa, he is up in arms with the Lodhi community over the removal and then reinstall the statue of Maharani Avantibai Lodhi. His controversial video discussing the possibility of buying Lodhi votes only added fuel to the fire. Furthermore, during the Ram Navami procession, a young man was sent to jail for climbing onto a religious pedestal, leading to allegations of police brutality and discontent among BJP supporters.

Internal discord within the party has also surfaced due to Subrat's contentious remarks about BJP leader Satish Pal during the ticket allocation process, which went viral and sparked further discontent. BJP leaders who did not wish to be named said Pathak is fighting the Brahmins of Kannauj and Akhilesh as well.

In his support, the party's deputy chief minister Keshav Maurya has addressed six rallies with a focus on Tirwa where Pathak's tiff with Lodhis continues to simmer. Shah on his part too held his rally in Tirwa to alleviate his political troubles. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already addressed a rally for him.

Not to forget the perfumers' lobby plays a pivotal role in Kannauj. Understanding the direction of the perfumers is crucial in the final stages. Every party maintains cordial ties with this lobby. But in the last five years, the perfumery businesses have faced numerous raids from the Income Tax and GST departments.