UP: Dimple Yadav Leads In Mainpuri By-Polls With Highest Ever Vote Share For Samajwadi Party

Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Dimple Yadav is leading in Mainpuri parliamentary by-polls by over 2.5 lakh votes.

This margin is even greater than the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when SP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fought the elections together and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav himself contested from here.

Prior to that, the victory margin had been higher in the 2004 and the 2014 elections, but then the contest was not bipolar.

If we take the sum of votes that major opposition candidates received and subtract it from the SP votes, then the victory margin has never been this much.

This can be understood from the vote share as well. Dimple Yadav got over 64 per cent of the votes. SP's vote share was close to 64 per cent only once, in the 2004 elections.

SP's huge victory comes at a time when BJP has been strengthening itself in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP was quite aggressive during the election campaign as well.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath himself campaigned for the BJP candidate Raghuraj Singh Shakya. Shakya was considered to be Akhilesh Yadav's uncle Shivpal Yadav's loyalist.

By posing him against Dimple Yadav, BJP wanted to exploit the rift in the family. However, Akhilesh managed to bring Shivpal on his side to support Dimple.

Shivpal Yadav is considered helpful for this victory because his legislative seat Jaswantnagar falls under Mainpuri parliamentary constituency.

He has been elected as Jaswantnagar MLA six times and has a substantial influence in the Mainpuri region.

After Shivpal announced support for Dimple, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP) workers began working for her. And hence, the consolidation of the Yadav vote bank resulted in a huge victory.

CM Adityanath knew how important it is to dent into the Yadav vote bank to register a win in Mainpuri. Hence, he even invoked Mulayam himself and sought his blessings for a victory here.

"Netaji (Mulayam) said in the parliament in 2019 that BJP will win elections hereafter. We won Azamgarh and Rampur by his blessings and are going to do the same in Mainpuri," Adityanath said during the campaign.

However, none of these tactics seem to have worked as the sympathy was completely on the Yadav family's side over the demise of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

With a huge victory in Mainpuri and the victory of SP's ally RLD candidate in Khatauli, the party's morale would have got a much-needed boost now, especially after the defeats in June by-polls and Gola Gokarn Nath by-polls of last month.