Dimple Yadav, former MP and wife of Akhilesh Yadav, has been fielded by the Samajwadi Party for the bypolls to the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency. The Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat fell vacant due to the death of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The names of Akhilesh's cousin Dharmendra Yadav and his nephew Tej Pratap Yadav were also doing the rounds as probable candidates for the Mainpuri seat but it finally decided by the party to field Dimple Yadav.
Voting will be held on December 5 and the results will be declared on December 8. Mainpuri is a Samajwadi Party stronghold and it was from this seat that Mulayam was first elected an MP in 1996.
He successfully contested from the seat three more times -- 2004, 2009 and 2019. In the 2014 bypoll, Akhilesh's nephew Tej Pratap Yadav won the seat.
The election will be a litmus test for SP president Akhilesh Yadav as this will be the first electoral battle for the party without Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Dimple Yadav has contested the Lok Sabha polls four times -- twice each during bypolls and general elections. She won twice from Kannauj,
Dimple's maiden attempt to enter the Lok Sabha in 2009 failed when Congress's Raj Babbar defeated her in the Firozabad Lok Sabha bypoll. That byelection was held as Akhilesh chose to vacate the Firozabad seat and retained Kannauj.
She won the Kannauj Lok Sabha bypoll unopposed in 2012 when Akhilesh resigned the seat to enter the state legislative council as he had become the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. She then won the same seat in the 2014 general elections but lost it to BJP's Subrat Pathak in 2019.
Apart from Mainpuri, bypolls will also held for Rampur Sadar and Khatauli Assembly constituencies.
The Rampur seat fell vacant after its incumbent MLA Azam Khan's membership of the state assembly was cancelled following his conviction in a hate speech case. He has been sentenced for three years.
Azam Khan represented Rampur Sadar 10 times in the Assembly while his wife Tazeen Fatima won from the seat once. The BJP has never won from Rampur Sadar, a Muslim-dominated seat.
The Khatauli seat fell vacant after the conviction of BJP's Vikram Saini in a case.
While the SP will field its candidates in Rampur and Mainpuri, its ally Jayant Chaudhary's RLD will contest from Khatauli.