Akhilesh to launch Chhattisgarh poll campaign from Sep 25

UP: BJP wants to take away right to vote, says Ex-CM Akhilesh — File - Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav will launch his party’s poll campaign in Chhattisgarh on September 25

Chhattisgarh is due for polls towards the end of this year along with Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, and Telangana, though the Election Commission has not yet notified them.

Akhilesh Yadav plans to expand his party’s footprints outside Uttar Pradesh as he aspires to turn the Samajwadi Party into a national party from its present status of a regional political party.

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Yadav will address a public meeting at Agrasen Dhaam in Raipur, the state capital of Chhattisgarh. He will also chair a party workers’ meeting.

The SP chief, sources said, is also likely to meet Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel during the visit.

Chhattisgarh is a Congress-ruled state and the Samajwadi Party has never won an Assembly or Lok Sabha seat in the state. The party’s Chhattisgarh unit has identified 40 Assembly seats where its candidates can be fielded.

The SP has announced that it will contest polls in all the states (except Mizoram). The party has already declared its candidates on six Assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh.

Ahead of Akhilesh Yadav’s meeting, the Chattisgarh unit of the SP has made a list of 40 constituencies it intends to contest even as the SP has now become a part of the INDIA bloc of the opposition parties in the country for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Chhattisgarh has 90 Assembly and 11 Lok Sabha seats. In 2018, the SP contested about 10 Assembly seats but won none.

Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh state unit president Navin Gupta said, “We are preparing for polls and we will have more discussions with the party’s national president when he comes here. So far as the INDIA bloc is concerned, it is for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. We have not had any discussions with the Chhattisgarh unit of the Congress over the polls.”

The SP’s former Chhattisgarh state president and working committee member Om Prakash Sahu also said that the INDIA bloc was for the Lok Sabha polls and added: “But we will have a friendly fight with the Congress in the Assembly polls so that our political presence and visibility increases in the state.”