Former Congress MP and ex-UP Congress chief Raj Babbar is likely to return to Samajwadi Party ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Interestingly, on Monday, he was named as one of the 30 star campaigners of Congress for the first phase of the UP polls. Sources said that Raj Babbar was in touch with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and could quit the Congress soon.

A former cine star and native of Agra, Raj Babbar began his political journey from Janata Dal in 1989 before switching allegiance to Samajwadi Party and was elected to Rajya Sabha in 1994. In the 1999 general elections, Babbar was elected from Agra constituency to Lok Sabha and retained this seat in 2004 Lok Sabha polls as well. However, he was suspended from the SP for his outbursts against the party in February 2006. On October 5, 2008, he formally joined Congress at a massive rally in Agra.

In the by-election to Firozabad Lok Sabha seat in November 2009, Babbar emerged victorious on a Congress ticket. However, he suffered a setback by losing to the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Ghaziabad and Fatehpur Sikri, respectively. In the meantime, Raj Babbar was a member of the Rajya Sabha from March 2015 to November 2020. Most importantly, he served as Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president from 2016 to 2019.

For the past several months, Akhilesh Yadav has embarked on a state-wide tour as a part of his "Samajwadi Vijay Yatra" in a bid to stage a comeback in the state’s realpolitik. Buoyed by the overwhelming public support during his poll campaign, he has been claiming that the SP would win 400 seats in the 2022 assembly polls. While the former chief minister has ruled out any alliance with the Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party, the SP forged alliance with smaller outfits like Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) of Shivpal Singh Yadav, Mahan Dal, OP Rajbhar's Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Apna Dal faction led by Krishna Patel.