VARANASI: “I become CM when I don’t contest elections,” Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Tuesday, indicating that he would not contest the upcoming UP assembly elections.Speaking to the media, SP supermo said, “I become CM when don’t contest elections. In past I had gone to swear in as CM while being a Lok Sabha member”.“This time also I will go to swear in as CM from Lok Sabha,” he said, replying to a question on whether he would try his luck from any assembly seat in Varanasi.On a lighter note, Yadav said people in Kashi (Varanasi) consider auspicious timings before filing their nomination papers. He added that he would also do what he considered auspicious for himself.Earlier, Akhilesh Yadav had attacked the BJP following the Uttar Pradesh MLC election results, saying the party’s “double-engine” government had been reduced to “double zero” in key constituencies.The BJP won six of the 11 seats, while the SP secured five. The biggest setback for the BJP came in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, where the SP won both the Teachers’ and Graduates’ seats.Akhilesh said the results reflected growing anger among teachers, students and educated unemployed graduates ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.Yadav became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in March 2012, at the age of 38, after the Samajwadi Party won 224 of the 403 Assembly seats, securing an absolute majority. He had not contested the Assembly election that year and entered the state legislature through the Legislative Council. He took oath as chief minister on March 15, 2012.He served as chief minister until 2017, when the SP lost power to the BJP. The party’s tally fell from 224 seats in 2012 to 47 in 2017. Following the defeat, Yadav said the SP had failed to find the “glue” needed to bind voters together.In 2022, Yadav contested his first Assembly election from Karhal in Mainpuri district and won by 67,594 votes against BJP candidate SP Singh Baghel. However, the SP failed to return to power, winning 111 seats against the BJP’s 255. Yadav later resigned as Karhal MLA in 2024 after winning the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat.The 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly is scheduled to go to polls in 2027. The Samajwadi Party has announced that it will release its ‘Jan-Man Manifesto’ for the elections on November 26, coinciding with Constitution Day.
