Akhilesh Yadav announced recently that he would not be contesting the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls in 2022. This took some by surprise, including his own partymen who were quick to clarify that the final decision on this one has not yet been taken. But if you take a look at this track record, he has often taken the Legislative Council route rather than the elected route to the assembly (He did that in 2012 when he became CM and lead the 2017 election campaign as a Lok Sabha MP). In fact he has never contested a state election and it seems unlikely that he would do so this time round.
One reason for this is the West Bengal model for the BJP pitched a high profile campaign against Mamata Bannerjee in her own constituency and did manage to tie her down to campaigning there (She won the state but lost her own seat, taking off some of the icing from her otherwise emphatic win). Clearly Akhilesh Yadav does not want a repeat of that particular scenario. He wants to be free to campaign in the entire state specially since the party does not have any other star campaigners. It will be a one man show, totally driven by Akhilesh’s persona.
Which brings us to the other campaign from the opposition, the Congress camp that is led by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. She was asked as to whether she would be part of the forty percent tickets being reserved for women and she parried that saying she would reveal the answer at the relevant time. And though there is pressure from her party to contest but from all accounts she will probably not, keeping the same Mamata Bannerjee case study in mind. In fact, even during the last polls Prashant Kishor had suggested that Priyanka contest as the CM face but that was shot down due to the high stakes and the risk of exposure in case she lost. The same argument was given later when Priyanka herself wanted to take on Prime Minister Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls but she was not `cleared’ by the High Command to do so.
So from all accounts the Battle for Uttar Pradesh will be fought between three high profile personalities— Yogi Adityanath, Akhilesh Yadav and Priyanka Gandhi but only one of them will be contesting the assembly elections. And here is the irony— if the buzz in the BJP is right, and if Yogi Adityanath and the BJP does win the state, it is still not clear whether he will be made CM for a second term or not.
Who ever said the Hindi heartland was easy to figure out?