SP fields daughter-in-law Aparna against BJP's Rita Bahuguna

Aparna Yadav, wife of Mulayam Singh Yadav's second son Prateek, was on Monday fielded by Samajwadi Party from Lucknow Cantt constituency, making it a high profile contest as she will take on BJP's Rita Bahuguna, who had won the seat in the last Assembly polls.

26-year-old Aparna, the latest entrant from the Yadav clan, figured in Samajwadi Party's fourth list of 37 candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. The wife of the step-brother of SP president and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will cross swords with 67-year-old Rita, former state Congress chief who had won the seat in the 2012 Assembly polls.

Daughter of Congress stalwart and former state Chief Minister H.N. Bahuguna, Rita quit Congress in October last year to join BJP, after which she resigned as the legislator.

Aparna, a political greenhorn who has the backing of the ruling SP, has been nurturing the constituency under the banner of an NGO. Although Aparna's candidature was announced much earlier, the internecine tussle in Samajwadi Party and emergence of Akhilesh Yadav as the new party president had made her ticket unsure till it was announced on Sunday.