LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, on Thursday, dropped indications of contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2024 from Kannauj, the parliamentary constituency from where had taken his electoral plunge in 2000.
While participating in a personal event, Akhilesh interacted with mediapersons and said, "What will I do if I am sitting idle? I will fight the election. Our job is to contest elections."
Akhilesh Yadav went on to say he will contest from where he had contested for the first time.
However, the Samajwadi Party chief rushed to add that the final call will be taken by the party as a whole when the occasion comes.
Notably, Akhilesh had contested and won the Kannauj bypoll in the year 2000 and become a parliamentarian for the first time. He retained the seat in 2004 and 2009.
At present, Akhilesh is an MLA from the Karhal assembly seat, which falls in Mainpuri. During the 2022 Assembly polls, he had decided to relinquish his Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat and contest from his traditional bastion Karhal.
Meanwhile, in 2019, Subrat Pathak of the BJP had won the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat defeating SP candidate Dimple Yadav by a margin of 12353 votes.
Dimple herself had made her debut in electoral politics from the seat which she had won after Akhilesh Yadav resigned from the Lok Sabha in 2012 after taking over as the youngest Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Dimple has also represented Kannauj in Lok Sabha in 2014.
Meanwhile, the party has fielded Dimple Yadav as the party candidate for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll, necessitated by the death of her father-in-law and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.