The BJP, which won the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh in 2022 bypolls, hopes to wrest Mainpuri too.
Samajwadi Party's Dimple Yadav won the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat by nearly 290,000 votes in a by-poll in 2022, after her father-in-law Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had won the seat in 2019, passed away.
Five years ago, Mainpuri was one of only five seats that the SP had won in Uttar Pradesh.
The SP has not lost the seat since 1996, the BJP has never won it, and the Congress, currently the SP's junior ally in UP, last won it in 1984.
The BJP, , which won the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh in 2022 bypolls, hopes to wrest Mainpuri too, which goes to polls on May 7.
The party has fielded Uttar Pradesh Tourism Minister and Mainpuri Sadar MLA Jaiveer Singh.
At an election rally in Mainpuri, BJP leader Amit A Shah promised the electorate that he would ensure Jaiveer Singh is entrusted with bigger responsibilities if he were to win Mainpuri.
'You make him win and we will ensure that he becomes a big man,' Shah said.
The highlight of Dimple's 2024 fight is her daughter Aditi Yadav canvassing for her mother.
Unlike in 2019, when tensions between SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav were rife, and the latter floated his own party, the family has put forth a united front this election.
The entire family was present when Dimple filed her nomination.
Her husband Akhilesh and his uncles Shivpal and Ram Gopal Yadav accompanied her.
The Bahujan Samaj Party, which was an ally of the SP in 2019, has fielded Shiv Prasad Yadav, but the contest is primarily one between the SP and the BJP.
In the 2022 assembly polls, the BJP made inroads into Mainpuri, a stronghold of the SP's first family.
Of Mainpuri's five assembly segments, the SP won three, including Akhilesh winning Karhal and Shivpal winning Jaswant Nagar. The BJP won the Mainpuri and Bhogaon assembly seats.
Jaiveer Singh started his political career with the Congress, switched later to the BSP, and won an assembly poll in 2002.
He soon defected to be inducted as a minister in the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government in the same year.
Singh returned to the BSP before the assembly polls in 2007 and was a minister in the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party government.
2024 contenders
SP's Dimple Yadav, incumbent MP
BJP's Jaiveer Singh
2019 Result
Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP) 53.66%
Prem Singh Shakya (BJP) 44.01%
Total electorate (2019) 1,723,236
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
