LUCKNOW: While Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav filed his nomination from Karhal Assembly seat of Mainpuri district on Monday as part of his first-ever electoral sojourn to the UP Assembly, the ruling BJP sprang a surprise by fielding Union Minister of State SP Singh Baghel to corner the former in his stronghold.
Baghel is currently the BJP MP from Agra and was once close to SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Akhilesh, currently the MP from Azamagarh, is the second one to file nomination papers for the Assembly elections from the Yadav clan after his uncle Shivpal Yadav who is in fray from his traditional Jaswantnagar seat in Mainpuri.
Karhal, which has been with the Samajwadi Party for decades, will be going for polling on February 20. The BJP had last won the seat in 2002 and since then, it has been an SP fortress.
After filing papers Akhilesh took to Twitter.
“This nomination is a mission as this UP election will write the country’s history for the next century. Let’s take part in this movement of positive politics with progressive thinking. Defeat negative politics, remove it. Jai Hind!” he posted.
On the other side, Baghel also filed his nomination papers on Monday. A former sub-inspector in UP Police, Prof SP Singh Baghel is a big name in the political arena of the state.
He was a part of Mulayam’s security fleet while being in the police in 1989.
He was the CM’s personal security officer (PSO) and went on to become the Samajwadi Lok Sabha MP from Jalesar in 1998, 1999 and 2004.
In 2014, Baghel went to Rajya Sabha through BSP nomination. In 2017, he won the Assembly election from Tundla on a BJP ticket and was made a cabinet minister in the state government.
Later, BJP gave him a ticket from Agra in 2019 general elections and he won the seat.