Mainpuri bypoll: A moment of reckoning for Akhilesh Yadav
The HinduBy declaring his wife and former Member of Parliament, Dimple Yadav, as the party candidate from Mainpuri in the upcoming Lok Sabha bypoll on December 5, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has done his best to save his bastion from a resilient Bharatiya Janata Party, which already beat the SP in the Azamgarh and Rampur bypolls. He said this would also remove the possibility of Aparna Yadav, the SP president’s sister-in-law who joined the BJP earlier this year, contesting from the seat. Sources in the BJP said that Mr. Shivpal Yadav is being propped up to turn his newly formed Yadukul Punarjagran Mission, a Yadav front, into a political outfit before the Lok Sabha polls. As the BJP once again seems keen to pick a Shakya candidate for the seat, Mr. Yadav has appointed a Shakya as the district president of the party unit, just weeks before the bypoll.