Shivpal to contest from Jaswant Nagar on PSP ticket

The ongoing tussle between Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav and his estranged uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav was likely to enter the electoral arena.

The SP and Shivpal, who has formed a separate outfit Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP), could have an electoral face-off in Jaswant Nagar assembly constituency, the Mulayam family pocket borough, in the very near future.

Shivpal, who had won the seat on the SP ticket in 2017 assembly polls in the state, on Wednesday made it clear that he would again contest from there as PSP nominee if he lost his membership of the house as a result of the disqualification petition filed against him by the SP under the Anti-Defection Law.

SP legislature party leader Ram Govind Chaudhary moved a petition before UP assembly speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit in this regard a few days back.

''I will contest from Jaswant Nagar...Akhilesh is free to put up his party nominee from there...he (SP candidate) will lose his security deposit,'' Shivpal said.

He said that he would ask SP patron and Akhilesh's father Mulayam Singh Yadav to campaign for him at Jaswant Nagar. ''I campaigned for him (Mulayam) at Mainpuri in 2019 Lok Sabha polls...he should campaign for me,'' he said.

SP leaders here said that the tussle between Akhilesh and Shivpal might help the BJP wrest the seat. ''The division in the SP vote bank will certainly help the BJP,'' said a senior SP leader here.

Shivpal had been having estranged relations with Akhilesh since the latter sacked him from the post of party general secretary and as a minister in 2016.