Mainpuri: The Karhal Assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh is set to witness a clash between two members of former chief minister late Mulayam Singh Yadav’s clan — SP’s Tej Pratap Yadav and BJP’s Anujesh Yadav — in the November 13 by-election.
The BJP named Anujesh Yadav as its candidate for the seat on Thursday.
The bypoll was necessitated after Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav vacated the seat following his Lok Sabha win from Kannauj.
Tej Pratap Yadav is the grandson of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s nephew, Ranvir Singh Yadav. Anujesh Yadav is the brother-in-law of Dharmendra Yadav, who is Mulayam Singh Yadav’s nephew and currently a Lok Sabha MP from Azamgarh.
Political observers see this bypoll as a high-stakes family affair between the two relatives from the Yadav clan, with Tej Pratap representing the SP’s longstanding hold over the Karhal seat, while Anujesh Yadav aiming to make inroads with the BJP’s backing.
Anujesh Yadav hails from Bharol village in Firozabad district and is married to Sandhya Yadav, a former District Chief of Zila Panchayat, Mainpuri, who has been a key supporter of the BJP.
His familial connections to the Yadav clan add a layer of complexity to the bypoll, as he is the ‘fufa’ (uncle-in-law) of SP candidate Tej Pratap Yadav.
The SP has dominated the Karhal seat since 1993, and Akhilesh Yadav won the seat in the 2022 Assembly elections. However, after his victory in the Lok Sabha from Kannauj in 2024, he vacated Karhal, paving the way for the by-election.
Despite the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also fielding a candidate — Avnish Kumar Shakya — political analysts see the contest as a direct fight between the BJP and the SP.
The BSP’s entry is viewed as an attempt to cut into the SP’s traditional voter base, especially with the district SP chief Alok Shakya, a former MLA, expected to command the Shakya votes.
The rivalry between the relatives deepened when on March 24, 2019, a letter attributed to Dharmendra Yadav, who had distanced himself from Anujesh Yadav after his decision to join the BJP, went viral. The letter read, “Anybody who joins the BJP cannot be my relative.” Karhal, situated just 4 km from the Yadav family’s native village of Saifai, is also part of Dimple Yadav’s Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency.
Given the long-standing influence of the Yadav family in the region, this bypoll is being watched closely, with the outcome seen as a significant test of the SP’s continued dominance in the area against the ruling BJP’s growing presence.
Karhal is among the nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh where the bypolls are due on November 13. The results are scheduled for November 23.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)