Will Akhilesh's wife make it to LS from Kannauj?

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple is likely to try her luck at the hustings once again. Her name was already being projected as the Samajwadi Party frontrunner for the forthcoming by-election for the Kannauj Lok Sabh seat, vacated by none other than her husband after he became UP chief minister.

While rumour mills were churning out stories about the possible rise of another aspirant from Mulayam Singh Yadav's own household, Akhilesh's supporters have already raised the pitch for Dimple.

And even as the Samajwadi Party parliamentary board is all set to meet on March 24 to finalise the party's list for different forthcoming elections, a band of Akhilesh's supporters came down from Kannauj to Lucknow to convey that none other than Dimple would be acceptable to them.

Carrying banners and posters bearing huge portraits of Dimple, they marched down the main thoroughfares between the chief minister's official residence at Kalidass Marg and the Samajwadi Party state headquarters on Vikramaditya Marg in Lucknow.

Posters, emboldened with "we want Dimple alone to take Akhilesh Bhaiya's place in Kannauj", were already on display all over Kannauj, from where Akhilesh Yadav had won in 2009 with a landslide margin.

Putting forward their demand to field Dimple, they claimed, "After all Akhuilesh Bhaiya has won three consecutive elections from Kannauj; the people of the region adore him, so they will go all out for his wife."

On his part, initially Akhilesh had publicly ruled out the possibility of bringing Dimple back to the political arena ever since she was defeated at the Firozabad Lok Sabha poll in 2009, when she tried to make her debut from there. But currently he was tight-lipped on the issue.

While it was being officially stated that a decision would be taken by the party parliamentary board, insiders claim that the final word would come from none other than SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.