Mulayam’s chhoti bahu, Aparna Bisht Yadav, is the wife of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger son Prateek, who decided to stay away from politics to run a real estate business and a chain of body-building gyms.
However, his wife has decided to deviate from the path chosen by her husband and has decided to enter politics with the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections. Aparna will contest from Lucknow Cantonment area.
The 26-year-old will be the face of the Samajwadi Party from the Lucknow (Cantonment) in the 2017 assembly elections. Lucknow Cantt has traditionally been a Congress-BJP seat, currently held by Rita Bahuguna Joshi.
Aparna completed her post-graduate degree in politics and international relations from Manchester University. She’s been running an NGO called B-Aware that works for women’s empowerment, women’s safety and animal welfare.
Mother of a three-year-old, she is a trained classical and semi-classical singer and has also won acclaim for her social work from the United Nations.
According to media sources, Aparna has also been encouraged by her mother Ambi Bisht, to enter politics. Bisht is a recognisable figure in Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh capital.
Additionally, the Cantonment area of the city has been dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party since 1991. A flight from the order was seen in 2009 when then-Congress member Rita Bahuguna Joshi fought the Lok Sabha election from Cantt and secured victory over BJP’s Lalji Tandon with about 7,000 votes.
It would be interesting to see how Aparna performs in a seat which is not only a BJP stronghold, but is also an untested realm for the SP.
The constituency has a total of 3,15,000 voters, which includes 60,000 Brahmins, 50,000 Dalits, 40,000 Vaishyas, 30,000 other backward classes, 25,000 Thakurs and 20,000 Muslims voters.
Speaking to The Economic Times earlier this year in July, this is what Rita Bahuguna had said about Aparna’s plans to contest for elections from Cantt:
She must be the 23rd Yadav from the family to get a ticket. Moreover, I am surprised by the choice of the seat; it’s a traditional Congress-BJP seat. I am sure she will trail at fourth position – good luck to her.
According to the ET report, many pollsters also believe that the odds are against Aparna and that she stands a better chance with urban voters.
Interestingly, things had not seemed too rosy between Aparna and the SP back in November 2014 when she had praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Swachh Bharat Mission and about 10 months later fixed a meeting with BJP’s Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur. The meeting, however, was eventually called off.
(With inputs from Newspear and The Indian Express.)
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