UP ASSEMBLY SET TO WITNESS YOGI-AKHILESH FACE-OFF

Lucknow: It was a day of resignations in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. It started with Chief Minister designate Yogi Adityanath quitting his legislative council membership after being elected with a thumping majority for the first time as an MLA from his bastion – Gorakhpur assembly seat.

Hours later, SP chief, Akhilesh Yadav also resigned from his Lok Sabha membership. Yadav, who is an MP from Azamgarh contested UP assembly elections 2022 from Karhal assembly and won with a handsome margin. He interacted with the people of both Karhal and Azamgarh in the last couple of days before deciding to represent the former in the newly constituted UP assembly.

He is now poised to play the role of the leader of the Opposition in the assembly. The SP with its allies has a total strength of 125 MLAs. The stage is set: As both Yogi and his political bête noire Akhliesh have decided to retain assembly memberships, it’s going to be face-to-face between them now and the House proceedings are expected to witness animated and interesting exchanges in future. By shifting his base from Delhi to Lucknow, Akhilesh has given a clear signal that he is ready to nourish and nurture the bi-polar polity that has emerged in the state for the first time.

The SP is mandated to play the role of an effective—indeed the only— Opposition to the BJP. Therefore, Akhilesh’s presence in Lucknow is imperative to ensure that the SP’s MLAs are on the ball and do not function in the halfhearted manner in which they did between 2017 and 2021.

So, it would be interesting to watch if the SP chief will be able to conduct himself with chutzpah and bring the degree of aggression that is required from the party to re-establish its credentials? Secondly, what will be the role of Shivpal, his once estranged uncle, will he play along? And last but not the least, Would the SP’s allies, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, accept Akhilesh’s stewardship?

The former UP CM seems to have a lot on his platter in the days to come. In Parliament, the SP has only five MPs including Akhilesh