Union
Minister SP Singh Baghel is the candidate Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) filed
against Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Akhilesh Yadav for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections. This is a tactical decision from
the ruling party as Baghel, a former SP defector, knows Akhilesh like the back
of his palm. He was once close to Akhilesh’s father Mulayam Singh Yadav.

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Baghel,
the Minister of State for Law and Justice, is a seating MP from Agra. In the
forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, he will contest from Karhal in
the eastern part of the state, where Akhilesh Yadav is contesting his first
assembly elections, starting February 10.

Akhilesh,
who filed his nomination papers on Monday, said, “Whoever is chosen as the
BJP candidate from Karhal will lose.”

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Baghel
had earlier contested an election against Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav and
lost.

Asked
about his candidature against Akhilesh, Baghel said he is delighted that the
party had chosen him to contest the election against Akhilesh Yadav.
Interestingly, Baghel was chosen as BJP candidate against Akhilesh at the last
minute when he went to the election commission office to submit his documents.

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“It
is very important to have a surprise element in elections,” the Union
Minister said.

Talking
about his campaign, Baghel said his main campaign points would be nationalism
and development. “The BJP thought about the country, removed Article 370
(which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir),” he said.

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Baghel,
a former police officer in the Uttar Pradesh Police, was in the security team
of Mulayam Singh Yadav. It was Mulayam who encouraged Baghel to fight his first Lok
Sabha election in 1989. He lost that year and in the next election too. He was
elected for the first time in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections.

As
his political equation with Mulayam changed, Baghel first joined Mayawati’s
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and then the BJP.

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In
2019, he won the Lok Sabha election from Agra. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
inducted him to his cabinet during last year’s cabinet revamp.