Akhilesh Yadav likely to resign as MLA from Karhal, Azam Khan to follow suit

Image Source : PTI (FILE)
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav

Highlights

Akhilesh Yadav won the Karhal seat with a margin of 67,504 votes
He defeated BJP leader and Union Minister SP Baghel
Azam Khan defeated BJP rival Akash Saxena by a margin of over 55,000 votes

Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav is likely to resign as an MLA, sources told India TV on Saturday. Akhilesh is a Lok Sabha MP from Azamgarh. He won the Assembly election from the Karhal Assembly seat in Mainpuri district in the just concluded polls in Uttar Pradesh.

Yadav won the Karhal Assembly seat with a margin of 67,504 votes. He had secured 1,48,196 votes, while his nearest rival, Union Minister SP Singh Baghel of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), got 80,692 votes.

Karhal is considered to be a stronghold of the SP. Yadav secured 60.12 per cent of the votes polled, while Baghel got 32.74 per cent votes. Yadav contested the Assembly polls for the first time. During his tenure as the CM, Akhilesh Yadav was a member of the Legislative Council.

Sources added that Samajwadi Party's Muslim face Azam Khan who contested the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections while being jailed, could follow the suit. Khan won polls from the Rampur Assembly seat. He is also likely to resign as an MLA and continue to represent the Rampur seat in the Lok Sabha.

Khan, a former Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister and nine-term MLA, registered victory against nearest rival Akash Saxena (Honey) of the BJP from Rampur seat by a margin of over 55,000 votes. Khan got 1.31 lakh (or 59.71 per cent) of the total votes counted while Saxena polled 76,084 (or 34.62 per cent) votes.

Khan is currently lodged in the Sitapur jail over multiple charges including theft, criminal intimidation and land encroachment.

Meanwhile, Akhilesh Yadav will chair a meeting of the newly-elected MLAs of the party at the party office in Lucknow on March 21.

The BJP has retained power in Uttar Pradesh, winning a majority of the 403 seats in the state and is set to continue with its Yogi Adityanath-led government once again. The saffron party alone pocketed 255 seats and its partners Apna Dal (S) and NISHAD won 12 and 6 seats, respectively. The Samajwadi Party finished second with 111 seats.