In Rampur, an absent Azam Khan is omnipresent: in SP unit’s revolt, ally Congress’s warmth, BJP’s hopes

In times past, poll season would have seen SP leaders making a beeline for the Jail Road address. Rampur can’t remember the last time when a Khan family member or a leader recommended by him was not contesting on the SP ticket.

This time, SP national president Akhilesh Yadav, who has had a prickly relationship with Khan – like other leaders belonging to his father Mulayam Singh Yadav’s time – has given the Rampur ticket to a cleric from Delhi, Mohibbullah.

Khan apparently wanted Akhilesh to contest, and after he refused, recommended his old-time aide Asim Raja. While Raja even filed his nomination papers as “the SP candidate”, the papers were rejected during scrutiny.

Now, the SP district organisation, whose leaders owe their loyalty to Khan, is in revolt, questioning the choice of Mohibbullah, who has been the imam of a mosque on Parliament Street in New Delhi for the past 20 years.

Mohibbullah’s election office in-charge and cousin Maqtoob Ahmed complains that SP district president Ajay Sagar as well as Raja, the SP Rampur chief, have chosen to be “neutral”. “Neither they nor their people are supporting us. Former SP district president Virendra Goel is working for the BSP,” Ahmed says, adding that while they haven’t complained to the high command, they would raise the issue when Akhilesh comes for a rally to Rampur on April 14.

Vote shares (%) in Rampur Lok Sabha seat

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Azam Khan had won from Rampur by a 1.1-lakh vote margin against the BJP’s Jaya Prada. The SP had an alliance with the BSP at the time, while the Congress candidate got 35,009 votes.

But in 2022, Khan – a 10-term MLA from Rampur Sadar – chose to contest the Assembly polls. In the bypoll held for the Rampur Lok Sabha seat, amidst allegations of large-scale intimidation, the BJP won by around 42,000 votes.

Later, after conviction in a case, Khan was disqualified as the Rampur Sadar MLA. The BJP won that seat too in a bypoll.

Raja, who along with Sagar had earlier threatened to boycott the Lok Sabha polls in Rampur if Akhilesh did not accept the ticket, says he is staying out as he is “resting” due to health reasons. However, Goel is open about his “revolt against the party candidate” and about working for the BSP, which has fielded a property dealer and political debutant, Zeeshan Khan.

Goel says the nomination to an “outsider” Mohibbullah is aimed at ending the politics of Azam Khan. “No one will be able to change the ‘nizam’ of Rampur. All of Azam’s supporters are against Mohibbullah.”

Azam Khan’s house in Rampur. (Express Photo: Lalmani Verma)

However, on the flip side, this means that Khan’s opponents, long held at bay, are coming out in support of Mohibbullah.

At a meeting held by Mohibbullah Tuesday in preparation for Akhilesh’s rally, one of those present was Congress leader Afroz Ali Khan. In 1996, Afroz had won the Rampur Sadar Assembly seat defeating Khan, but the latter had gone on to best him in 2002 and 2007 Assembly polls.

Afroz, who talks of perfect coordination between the SP and Congress which are contesting as allies, claims Mohibbullah will also get the support of Begum Noor Bano, the two-time Congress MP from Rampur (1999 and 1996) and a member of the erstwhile Rampur royal family. She and Khan have been in a long-standing battle of one-upmanship in Rampur.

Afroz says a meeting between the two sides took place last week. “The Begum would be invited for the (Akhilesh) rally. She is supporting the alliance candidate.”

In Rampur, Mohibbullah is also getting the support of the Aam Aadmi Party, the SP and Congress’s INDIA ally. AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s photographs are on the posters of Mohibbullah, along with those of Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and Akhilesh.

Local AAP leaders, like their Congress counterparts, are part of the preparations for Akhilesh’s rally.

The AAP has a presence in Rampur, with its candidates winning the 2023 polls for chairperson of Rampur Nagar Palika Parishad and Kaimri Nagar Panchayat. The BJP, in alliance with the Apna Dal (S), won three Nagar Palika chairperson posts here.

SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary says the party is confident of winning over those upset with the ticket to Mohibbullah.

However, there is some unease within the Congress too. Haji Ikram Qureshi, a former MLA named by the Congress as Rampur coordinator, is also missing from the scene. “An SP candidate is contesting. If there had been a Congress candidate, I would have been camped there,” he says.

Rehmatullah, a retired teacher, says Mohibbullah should still win easily from Rampur. “He is a cleric and all the Muslims will support him; they vote here either for the SP or Congress. They voted for Azam Khan too because of the SP. Only those loyal to him might not support Mohibbullah,” Rehmatullah says, while adding that a win for Mohibbullah would mean “the end of the clout of Azam”. “He will replace Azam as the Muslim face of the SP in the region.”

An SP worker points out that while Azam Khan’s photographs figure on Mohibbullah’s posters, his name is missing from party slogans.

The BJP has refielded Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi, who won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in the 2022 bypoll. Leaders of its minority wing and the Apna Dal (S)’s Suar MLA, Shafeek Ahmed Ansari, are reaching out to Muslims to canvass for Lodhi. A BJP leader says they are hopeful that “in the absence of Azam, some Muslims may vote for the BJP… at least those who are getting free rations”.

Rajeev Manglik, a Rampur BJP leader, says: “The BJP government has done development here. We are contesting on that and good governance. People are with us also because we fulfilled the promise of Ram Temple. Since the opening of the temple in January, we have taken around 5,000 locals to Ayodhya for ‘darshan’.”

Azam Khan was jailed first in February 2020 over alleged forgery of his son Abdullah’s birth certificate, to make him eligible to contest elections. He was released on bail by the Supreme Court in May 2022, but was again arrested in October last year after being convicted in a hate speech case lodged during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This led to his disqualification as MLA.

Tazeen Fatma is lodged in Rampur jail, and Abdullah in Hardoi prison. Abdullah also stands disqualified as the Suar MLA, after conviction in February 2023 in a case of “blocking traffic”.

In Rampur, where Muslims make up around 52% of the population, the community sympathises with Khan and family. But, they add, the BJP is a bigger concern. “I have been voting for the SP, and this time too I will vote for a candidate who can defeat the BJP,” says Mahmood, a farmer in Suar area.