New Delhi: Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav is likely to replace Akhilesh Yadav as the Leader of Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly after the latter resigns as MLA from the state legislative assembly, said sources.

Akhilesh Yadav, who was elected as the legislator from Karhal assembly constituency in UP’s Mainpuri district in the 2022 assembly elections, will have to resign from the post before assuming his new role as MP from Kannauj.

Comeback of Samajwadi Party in UP

In the recently held Lok Sabha elections, Samajwadi Party, which won 37 seats, emerged as the powerful force that led to the surge of the INDI bloc in the politically crucial state. 

Akhilesh Yadav-led party sprung up as the third largest party in the 543-member Lok Sabha. A day after his party’s impressive show in the Lok Sabha elections, Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said the aim of the ‘Samajwadis’ was to stop the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and they “succeeded” in it. 

The Samajwadi Party (SP) chief had on Wednesday said, "I thank the people of Kannauj, who supported positive politics and gave the samajwadis another chance." “The aim of samajwadis was to stop the BJP and they succeeded in this fight,” he added. The SP, which leads the INDI bloc in UP, alone secured 37 seats this time, becoming the single largest party. In a setback, the BJP managed to win only 33 seats out of 80.  

The SP supremo claimed victory in this seat by a margin of 1.7 lakh votes by defeating his nearest rival and BJP's Subrata Pathak. Yadav received 6,42,292 votes while Pathak polled 4,71,370 votes. BSP's Imran Bin Zafar secured third spot with 81,639 votes.  

The Kannauj parliamentary constituency, a Samajwadi Party stronghold since 1998, was breached by the BJP in 2019, when Subrata Pathak won by a margin of about 12,000 votes, defeating Dimple Yadav, wife of Akhilesh Yadav.
 

(With inputs from Harsha)