In order to reconquer Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party (SP) first had to retake the “Yadav Belt”, its core constituency from Badaun to Kannauj. However, with these 35 seats, which are somewhat representative of the SP’s overall strength in the state, the party led by Akhilesh Yadav has not made much progress in 2022. Example: The SP had won 29 of the 35 seats in 2012 when he took power in Uttar Pradesh with 224 seats.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won only one seat then, but in 2017, when the 325-seat wave led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought the BJP alliance to power, the BJP ousted the SP from its stronghold. in a reversal of roles and won 29 seats. seats here, reducing the SP to just six seats.
This time, the BJP managed to cut its losses here and still won 23 seats while the SP only managed 12 seats, far from a clear victory. This is despite Yadav himself competing from Karhal’s headquarters in Mainpuri, hoping to bring the SP back into contention throughout the ‘Yadav belt’. Yadav won against Karhal, but the BJP still got revenge by winning two of Mainpuri’s four seats, one more than in 2017. His uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav again competed from Jaswantnagar seat in Etawah district and ensured that the top two SP leaders fought from adjacent seats in the “Yadav belt”, unlike the situation in 2017 when the two were at odds and the party paid the price in this belt.
The patch-up with Shivpal didn’t seem to work now, as Shivpal went public with his displeasure with getting just one seat (his own) to compete with a higher demand of 35 seats. INDICATORS FROM THE GROUND News18 sensed during his travels in the Yadav belt that support for the SP was not universal and that the BJP continued to hold its ground thanks to improved law and order in many areas. many areas. This is also the announcement of potato belt by UP and Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath to start potato supply to MSP after elections were well received in the region.
In the 2022 results, the BJP won the three seats from Kannauj district, the four seats from Etah district and the four seats from Farukkahabad district – all these seats were won by the SP in 2012. In 2017, the SP won the Kannauj seat, which this time was also won by the BJP with its IPS-neta candidate Asim Arun. The only district in the “Yadav Belt” where the SP made some sort of comeback was Badaun, where it won four out of seven seats this time, down from just one in 2017 and five seats in 2012. The SP managed to defeat the BJP in the SP stripped two seats from Firozabad district, while the BJP cleanly swept four seats here in 2017, and the SP also managed to take back two seats from the BJP in Auriya district.
