Mainpuri has sent Yadavs 13 times to Lok Sabha since 1952

AGRA: Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency, a Samajwadi Party (SP) stronghold, has elected MPs of Yadav caste 13 times out of total 18 elections since 1952. Interestingly, of these, 10 times the MPs were chosen from Mainpuri’s neighbouring district of Etawah , the home district of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav .

Not only this, all the 10 MPs including three generation of veteran leader, MSY, his nephew Dharmendra Yadav and grandnephew Tej Pratap Yadav, chosen by the residents of Mainpuri to represent them in the Lok Sabha belong to Jaswant Nagar assembly constituency of Etawah district.

This constituency is currently represented by Akhilesh’s estranged uncle, Shivpal Yadav.

The merger of Jaswantnagar assembly segment with Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency happened after the last delimitation drive in 2009, making the position of the Yadav’s all the more indomitable.

According to district president of Congress and a resident of Etawah, Udaybhan Singh, this LS constituency has always been Yadav dominated. He said that only three MPs were from other castes, Badshah Gupta (1952 and 62) and Raghunath Singh Verma (1977 and 80) from Mainpuri and Bansidhar Dhangar (1957) from Etawah.

According to available statistics, Etawah residents, who had won from Mainpuri LS constituency included Bansidhar in 1957, Balram Singh Yadav in 1984, 1998, and 1999. MSY has represented Mainpuri three times in 1996, 2004 and 2009.

He had won this seat in the last Lok Sabha polls also with a margin of over 3.64 lakh votes but chose to retain his second seat, Azamgarh , which he contested along with Mainpuri.

MSY’s victory margin in Azamgarh was only 63,204 and he had defeated Ramakant Yadav. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls Mulayam had won this seat by a margin of over 1.6 lakh votes.

While MSY’s nephew, Dharmendra Yadav, MP from Badaun, had successfully contested the by-elections from Mainpuri in 2004, his grandnephew and present MP Tej Pratap Yadav, won the 2014 by-elections after MSY gave up the seat in favour of Azamgarh.