Awadhesh Prasad – Dalit SP Candidate From Faizabad Constituency (image-facebook/awadheshprasad)

Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday announced the list of 16 candidates for the Lok Sabha election. Thereby, the SP has become the first major political party to announce the candidate list for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha election. The list includes five-time cabinet minister and nine-time Milkipur MLA Awadhesh Prasad.

SP fielded Dalit leader Awadhesh Prasad in the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat. Political experts have commented on the fielding of Awadhesh that the SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is playing the Dalit card to win the election.

Awadhesh Prasad is currently serving as the SP MLA from the Milkipur assembly of Ayodhya district. He has been part of the party for a very long time and was one among the people who were very close to the former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.

In 1977, he won the election from Sohawal assembly constituency for the very first time. His winning streak continued in the 1985, 1989, 1993, 2002, 2007 and 2012 assembly elections.

In 2017, the SP leader tasted his first failure against the BJP candidate Gorakhnath Baba. Awadhesh was defeated by a margin of 28,276 votes in the Milkipur assembly.

But during the 2022 election, the SP leader regained the Milkipur seat by defeating Gorakhnath Baba with a margin of 13,000 votes. Awadhesh Prasad has reached the assembly in total 9 times from Sohawal and Milkipur assembly constituencies of Ayodhya.

Akhilesh who has been continuously stating that only feilding Dalit candidates in the election will give them a step ahead against BJP, has now initiated his strategy by fielding SP’s strong Dalit leader in the politically most strategic arena, Ayodhya.