LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister-designate Akhilesh Yadav might have opposed outgoing CM Mayawati during the election campaigns, but he will follow the footprints of ‘behanji’ on one point. Like Mayawati, Akhilesh, too, will become a member of the Legislative Council and will not contest elections.
During the last five years, Mayawati did not contest elections and remained a member of the State Legislative Council. Now, she is readying to quit the council to become a Rajya Sabha member and spend most of her time in Delhi.
The sources close to the top leadership in the SP shared with the Express that it was true that some newly elected MLAs had offered to vacate their seat to pave way for Akhilesh to contest. But the party strategists have advised Akhilesh to accept the membership of the council.
If Akhilesh has to remain the UP CM, he will have to quit his Lok Sabha constituency of Kannauj sooner or later. The grapevine in the political circles is that Akhilesh’s wife Dimple is likely to contest from the Kannauj seat to fulfil her dream, which was shattered when she had contested from the Ferozabad seat in 2009 and was defeated by the Congress candidate Raj Babbar.
Last time, too, the Ferozabad seat was vacated by Akhilesh, who had contested from the two seats and won both the seats and finally resigned from Ferozabad, from where his wife had contested and lost the elections, causing severe blow to the Yadav family. This time , too, she is said to be actively considering to contest the elections.
Apart from this, the senior SP leaders devoted much of their time on Monday in deciding the names of the candidates for Rajya Sabha elections in the state. Elections to 10 seats of the Rajya Sabha are to be held by the end of this month and the nomination papers are to be filed by March 19.