In the last assembly election, Samajwadi Party could not win the election in Uttar Pradesh but it performed very well. It was only after that that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had resigned from his Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat and decided to continue as an MLA. It was said then that Akhilesh would be more involved in the politics of the state by being an MLA and would work at the grassroots level. But after he became an MLA, his party had to face a big defeat in the first by-election itself. The Samajwadi Party also lost the election in Azamgarh seat vacated by Akhilesh’s resignation.
The most surprising thing is that Akhilesh Yadav did not go for campaigning in both Azamgarh and Rampur seats. Think it was a life-and-death election for his party. But he didn’t go for campaigning. On the other hand Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had nothing to prove because under his command and on his face the party won the election three months back. Despite this, Yogi campaigned on both the seats. It seems that as Akhilesh Yadav is the national president of his party, he is behaving like a national leader. Just like Narendra Modi and Amit Shah did not campaign in the by-election, similarly they did not campaign in the by-election. But they should keep in mind that Modi and Shah have the entire country, whereas Akhilesh has only Uttar Pradesh. In the pursuit of becoming a national leader, the politics of the state should not get out of hand.
