Lucknow: Dimple Yadav of the Samajwadi Party will try her luck at the hustings again. And this time she is expected to do much better than her misadventure in 2009, for two key reasons. First, her husband, Akhilesh Yadav is Uttar Pradesh's chief minister, and two, the Congress, which played spoilsport then, has declared that it will not field a candidate against Dimple Yadav for the Kannauj bye-elections.
Early today came the gift from the Congress, with its Rita Bahuguna saying that the party had not fielded anybody against Akhilesh in 2009, which is why the Congress is not contesting the bye-election.
Armed with that, the 35-year-old first lady of UP is filing her nomination today for the Lok Sabha seat her husband vacated to take charge as UP's chief minister some months ago. Akhilesh and Dimple, in a green sari and a step behind her husband, arrived on stage at a big SP rally in Kannauj to mark the occasion. Dimple Yadav was the unanimous choice of the SP's parliamentary board; the party said an overwhelming number of workers had demanded that she contest from Kannauj.
Addressing the crowds at the rally, Mrs Yadav said, "The people of UP have shown their will in the elections and the party leadership, the CM is thankful to you. The party leadership has placed their trust in me from Kannauj and I want to assure you that I will fulfill my duties faithfully."
Akhilesh Yadav has represented Kannauj thrice in the Lok Sabha.
Mrs Yadav's first foray into electoral politics was a bit of a disaster. Six months after her husband effortlessly won two Lok Sabha seats - Kannauj and Firozabad in 2009, she was handpicked to contest bye-elections to the one he vacated. Firozabad was said to be unhappy at being dumped by Mr Yadav and the Congress muscled in fielding ex-Samajwadi Party man and actor Raj Babbar against Dimple Yadav.
The party then made a focused effort to ensure her defeat; even Rahul Gandhi had campaigned for Mr Babbar, who won.
But times and political climes have changed. Father-in-law Mulayam Singh Yadav is now a "friend" of the Congress, one who was given top billing at a celebratory UPA dinner recently. He regularly bails the Congress out of tight corners in Parliament and the Congress is said to hope that he will add the weight of his 22 Lok Sabha MPs to its numbers if ever recalcitrant UPA ally Mamata Banerjee acts on her threat to withdraw the support of her 19 MPs.
The BSP has so far not named its candidate for Kannauj, which will vote on June 24. The BJP has fielded Jagdeo Singh Yadav as its candidate from Kannauj.
In the run-up to the assembly polls in UP, Mulayam Singh had said after Mrs Yadav's defeat in 2009 that the women of the Yadav household would not enter electoral politics again. But Dimple Yadav's political aspirations have clearly won the day. That and the confidence that an emphatic win of UP in the Assembly elections have brought the party.
Akhilesh and Dimple were married in November 1999. They have three children, Aditi and twins, Arjun and Tina.
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