Lucknow: Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, is expected to become the Leader of the Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. According to a party official, his party’s 111 legislators have unanimously elected him as the leader of the Samajwadi Party’s legislature party.
Mr Yadav would meet with leaders of Samajwadi Party allies to discuss problems that the Opposition parties will raise in the Assembly, according to the spokesperson.
Mr Yadav, a first-time MLA, resigned as MP for Azamgarh earlier this week after being elected legislator in his family’s stronghold of Karhal in Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri district.
According to sources, the former Chief Minister plans to challenge the BJP on the House floor in the run-up to the 2027 elections in the politically vital state.
In 2022 Assembly election, Mr Yadav was the main opposition to the BJP. While his party came in second place with 111 seats in the 403-member legislature, it saw a tremendous increase in its vote share and had its greatest showing in state polls ever.
According to sources, Akhilesh Yadav’s strategists feel that maintaining the party’s vote share is a requirement, not a choice, in order to avoid the perception that the Samajwadi Party president – the party’s greatest vote-getter – is “running away” after defeat.
The party’s top leaders are concerned that if their chiefs do not take an active role in state politics, Muslim and Yadav voters, who appear to have backed the party in the polls, may abandon the party.
Mr Yadav has termed his resignation as MP a “necessary sacrifice”. “Crores of people of UP have given us a moral victory in the Assembly polls. To honour this, I will represent Karhal and always remain committed to the progress of Azamgarh,” he said in a tweet after submitting his resignation to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
“This sacrifice is necessary for the struggle against inflation, unemployment and social injustice,” he added in his Hindi tweet.
While the BJP and its allies won 273 seats to return to power with a comfortable majority, the alliance’s total dipped by 49 seats. The election was a clear fight between the incumbent BJP and Mr Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, with the Congress and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party performing poorly.
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