The Lucknow Cantonment constituency is set to witness the female version of a David vs Goliath battle. Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, is making her electoral debut against former Congress state president Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who is contesting on a BJP ticket.
In the 2012 assembly election, Joshi trounced the BJP’s Suresh Tiwari by a margin of 21,000 votes. While Aparna, 26, entered politics just a year ago, Joshi, 67, has been active for 25 years.
Interestingly, Aparna was in the news earlier for her open support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Aparna and her husband, Prateek Yadav, also took selfies with Modi at Mulayam Singh Yadav’s grand-nephew Tej Pratap Singh Yadav’s wedding in Mainpuri in 2015.
Daughter of a former journalist, Aparna graduated from the University of Manchester in the UK, and is a classical singer. Prateek, who was born to Mulayam’s second wife Sadhna Gupta, has kept off politics and manages family property. A fitness freak, he runs a gym in Lucknow.
It is an open secret that Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s bete noire and uncle Shivpal Yadav was instrumental in fielding Aparna from this constituency. There were even reports that her candidacy had fuelled the Yadav family feud.
Sadhna, however, is all praise for her bahu. “She has done a lot of work in the area as a candidate; imagine what she would do if she becomes an MLA,” she said.
Joshi, however, is unperturbed by all the attention Aparna is getting. “I have worked a lot here,” she said. “My biggest plus points are my work record and personal rapport with the people of the area.”
Her father, H.N. Bahuguna, was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and her brother Vijay Bahuguna was chief minister of Uttarakhand.
