By IANS,
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav was Saturday declared elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from Kannauj constituency.
Returning officer Selva Kumari J. announced this after the 3 p.m. deadline for withdrawal of candidature from the contest ended.
Informed sources told IANS that Dimple Yadav, 35, the Samajwadi Party candidate, would go to Kannauj, about 125 km away, to collect her winning certificate Tuesday.
An elated Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said his daughter-in-law’s win would script a new chapter for Kannauj.
He thanked, among others, the opposition parties for the victory — since none of them put up any candidate against her.
Her victory became certain late Friday when the two minor contestants against her in Kannauj withdrew from the race, leaving Dimple Yadav as the lone candidate in the fray.
While the BSP and the Congress refused to field a candidate, the BJP made a last-minute decision to contest but its nominee failed to file the papers within the deadline.
On Friday, Dashrath Singh Shankwar of the Sanyukt Samajwadi Dal and Sanju Katiyar, an independent, withdrew from the race, officials said.
Dimple Yadav was fielded by the Samajwadi Party from Firozabad in the 2009 Lok Sabha election.
She then lost to Raj Babbar of Congress, the Bollywood actor who was formerly in the Samajwadi Party.
In the Lok Sabha, she will be in the company of her father-in-law Mulayam Singh Yadav (Mainpuri) and brother-in-law Dharmendra Yadav (Sambhal).