Earlier in 2017 also, congress had to bear the brunt of over-enthusiasm in front of Akhilesh Yadav. Actually the
matter is about the UP elections held in 2017. congress and SP had contested elections from here in alliance.
However, in this year's elections, the Modi wave was such that SP was reduced to 47 seats from 224 seats and
congress was reduced to 7 seats from 28 seats. After this, yogi Adityanath, who became CM, and Keshav
Prasad Maurya, who became Deputy CM, resigned from their respective lok sabha seats Gorakhpur and
Phulpur.
In the year 2018, lok sabha by-elections were announced in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. akhilesh yadav again
wanted the support of Congress. But no special attention was given by the congress leadership. However,
ghulam nabi azad, who was the congress leader at that time, talked to akhilesh yadav, but by then it was too
late and SP had got the support of Mayawati;s BSP. Akhilesh no longer needed Congress.
Yet when ghulam nabi azad talked to Akhilesh, he also demanded one of the two seats from Congress.
Akhilesh's answer was no. When in Gorakhpur, akhilesh yadav fielded praveen Nishad, son of Nishad Party
leader Sanjay Nishad, to contest from SP, congress gave the ticket to a Muslim candidate and a famous doctor
of Gorakhpur, Dr. Surhita Karim. However, in this election, SP candidate praveen Nishad won by getting four
and a half lakh votes. Whereas congress candidate Karim got only 19 thousand votes. This was a big defeat for
congress in front of SP.
Apart from this, SP gave ticket to nagendra Pratap Singh patel in Phulpur, the seat of Jawaharlal Nehru.
congress fielded Brahmin candidate manish Mishra from there. Atiq ahmed also contested as an independent
candidate from this seat. However, SP won this seat also and Congress's deposit was forfeited. After this, when
congress saw its potential in UP, after some time it supported the alliance candidates of SP-BSP and RLD in
the by-elections held on lok sabha and Noorpur assembly seats.
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