New Delhi: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has resigned to the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat and decided to retain the Karhal Assembly seat.

Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, the main opposition in Uttar Pradesh Assembly, won 111 seats in recently held Assembly elections.

Sources close to former Chief Minister said that SP chief has decided to take on the BJP as opposition leader in the UP assembly, with an eye on the 2027 polls in the most politically significant state in India, thus decided to quit Lok Sabha seat.

Another Samajwadi Party leader, Azam Khan, has also quit as an MP.  Akhilesh Yadav has decided to fight against BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav was an MP from eastern UP's Azamgarh. He contested the state election for the first time in the March-April polls, from family stronghold Karhal in the Mainpuri district.

The SP has increased its tally from 47 seats in 2017 to 111 seats in 2022 , securing 32.06 percent votes.
A big factor behind the Samajwadi chief's move seems to be the decimation of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which won just one seat.

Sources say Akhilesh Yadav's strategists believe it is a necessity - not a choice - to keep the party's vote share intact and also to avoid the perception that the Samajwadi chief - the party's biggest vote-getter - is "running away" after defeat.

The party's top leaders fear that if their chief is not proactive in state politics, the Muslim and Yadav voters, who apparently backed the party in the polls, may drift to other parties, NDTV reports.

#WATCH Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav hands over his resignation to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla from his membership of the House. pic.twitter.com/BNxpZUWKwJ

— ANI (@ANI) March 22, 2022