Lucknow: Conceding to a key demand of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, the party fielded his younger daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav from Lucknow Cantt seat on Monday. Wife of Mulayam’s younger son Prateek, the candidature of Aparna had been announced in April last itself and she had already started working in the constituency. However, her name was formally announced by party state unit chief Naresh Uttam while releasing the fourth list of 37 candidates on Monday.
Aparna will take on BJP's Rita Bahuguna Joshi, the sitting MLA from the constituency who had won the 2012 election as a Congress candidate but has now switched loyalty to the BJP. Daughter of a local journalist, Aparna is married to Mulayam and her second wife Sadhna Gupta’s son Prateek Yadav.
Although the younger Yadav scion is more into body-building and construction business, publically showing his utter disinterest in the family business of politics, Aparna is believed to have fairly a
good understanding of politics and her inclination to the real politik became evident ever since she joined the Yadav clan as Mulayam’s ‘Chhoti Bahu’ in December 2011.
Her political ambitions apart, Aparna is also seen in Lucknow’s political circles, as a hope for the political
aspirations of her mother-in-law Sadhna Gupta who too wants have her share in family’s political pie.
“With son Prateek being disinterested in politics, daughter-in-law is out to fulfil her dreams. She is Sadhna Gupta’s response to Dimple, Akhilesh’s MP wife,” says a senior leader of Samajwadi Party on condition of anonymity.
In its fourth list, while the party announced the candidates from eastern and Central UP including Varanasi, Jaunpur Chandauli, Azamgarh, Ballia, Gorakhpur, Ghazipur, Kannauj, Fatehpur, Lucknow, and
Sant Kabir Nagar, it dumped some of the prominent Shivpal loyalists like former minister Shadab Fatima. Fatima, who was sacked by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, was denied ticket and has been replaced by Mahendra Chauhan on Jahurabad (Ghazipur) seat by Mahendra Chauhan.
Another sitting MLA and state minister Wasim Ahmad has been denied ticket from Gopalpur seat in Azamgarh district. Instead the party has nominated Nafis Ahmad on this seat. Similarly, another sitting
MLA and minister Vijay Mishra has been replaced Ghazipur by Rajesh Kushwaha. Meanwhile, the party has also changed the ticket of Gufran Malik from Saharanpur (Rural) giving it to Ahmad Shahnawaz. Gufran Malik happens to be the brother of Mulayam loyalist MLC Ashu Malik.
In the wake of its alliance with the Congress party and the seat sharing formula, the Samajwadi is left with 298 seats to contest in UP leaving the rest 105 for the Congress. But, SP, jumping its share, has already announced candidates for 324 seats. Now the party has got into the exercise of withdrawing its
25-odd nominees from those constituencies which it has offered to Congress as part of seat-sharing agreement.