New Delhi: After the successful joint INDIA bloc rally in Amroha on April 20, “UP Ke Ladke” Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav will be seen together in the high-profile Kannauj parliamentary constituency next week.
“Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to address a joint rally, along with Akhilesh Yadav in Kannauj next week. A suitable date for both leaders is being worked out. The public meeting could either be held on May 10 or 11,” a senior AICC functionary said.
Polling in Kannauj will take place on May 13. “UP Ke Ladke” or “The Boys of UP” was the slogan popularised during the 2017 state assembly polls when the Congress and the Samajwadi Party had a pre-poll alliance. Both Rahul and Akhilesh, then UP chief minister, had campaigned together across the state, but the pact did not work on the ground.
Sources told ETV Bharat that after Kannauj, the two leaders will also campaign in Kanpur, Barabanki, Mohanlalganj and Sitapur Lok Sabha constituencies.
The Congress managers are hopeful that the situation in the state has changed significantly since then and that the coming together of Rahul and Akhilesh for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls would swing the fortunes of the two opposition parties pitted against the BJP and its allies.
While the Amroha joint rally was in support of Congress nominee Danish Ali, who shifted to the grand old party from ex-chief minister Mayawati’s BSP, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is pitted against BJP’s sitting MP Subrat Pathak in Kannauj, known for its traditional perfume industry.
Akhilesh’s entry into the Kannauj contest was dramatic. Initially, the SP chief named his nephew Tej Pratap Yadav from the seat, but the former chief minister had to step in quickly as miffed workers complained that only Akhilesh Yadav could defeat the BJP in the party stronghold since 1998.
Akhilesh Yadav had represented Kannauj in the Lok Sabha from 2000 to 2012 when he vacated the seat to become Chief Minister. The same year his wife Dimple Yadav won the seat in the by-polls and again in the 2014 national elections. In the previous 2019 national polls, BJP’s Subrat Pathak defeated SP’s Dimple Yadav by a narrow margin of 12,000 votes.
Earlier, Akhilesh’s father and former Chief Minister late Mulayam Singh Yadav had represented the Kannauj parliamentary seat. Like Akhilesh Yadav, Rahul Gandhi, too, has joined the UP contest and is a Congress candidate in the high-profile Rae Bareli seat vacated by his mother Sonia Gandhi, now a Rajya Sabha member. Rahul is pitted against BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh.
“Rahul’s candidature in Rae Bareli is as per the Congress tradition. The move will boost the Congress campaign across the state,” Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari told ETV Bharat. “The joint campaign of the INDIA bloc is going on very well. The Amroha rally was quite a hit and so will be the one in Kannauj,” he said.
As part of their alliance, the Congress and SP held a coordination meeting in Amethi seat which Rahul represented in the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2019. This time Gandhi family loyalist KL Sharma is fighting the Amethi seat against BJP’s sitting MP Smriti Irani. On his part, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has pledged to support the Congress nominees in Amethi and Rae Bareli.
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