Newsmaker | Once an Azam aide, Shafeek Ansari now NDA’s first Muslim MLA during Yogi tenure

While Ansari’s win is crucial because he is Pasmanda — the BJP gave tickets to Pasmanda Muslims in the Urban Local Body elections, too, to test the waters for future elections — it also assumes significance as it further shrunk SP veteran Azam Khan’s fiefdom in Rampur. This is the first time in decades that no one from the Khan family is an MLA or MP. The SP, too, is left with just one of the five state Assembly seats in Rampur.

Ansari, born and brought up in the Kashipur area of Suar, is not new to politics. He started his career in 1995 when he contested the election for the post of corporator in a ward in the Suar Tehsil.

Ansari’s wife Reshma Parveen is also a politician and on Saturday won the Suar Nagar Palika chairperson election on the Apna Dal (S) symbol. This was her second consecutive win from the seat. Parveen also started her political career by getting elected as a corporator in the 2000s.

Ansari also won the elections to the Suar Nagar Palika chairperson post in 2012 and 2017 — as an independent candidate.

A first-generation politician, Ansari has also been a part of the Samajwadi Party (SP). He was with the SP from 2017 to 2018 and claims to have been the orchestrator of Abdullah Azam Khan’s win from Suar in the 2017 Assembly elections.

A grassroots leader, he joined the Apna Dal (S) a year ago and now is the party’s 13th MLA in the 403-member House. “It was because of his hard work that he could win such an important seat for us. He is a people person,” said Apna Dal (S) spokesperson Rajesh Srivastava.

A BJP leader in Rampur said, “He has fought so many elections and is very adept at working during elections. It was due to his popularity in Suar that he could defeat the SP candidate.”

Despite smooth sailing in the end, Ansari seemed to have a task on his hand when the SP fielded Chauhan, an Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader, opposite him. Suar has a Muslim majority population — a large chunk of them Pasmandas — but sizable OBC numbers. “The BJP leadership and my party’s leadership trusted me, a Pasmanda, and my community has risen to the expectations,” the MLA said when asked about the BJP’s Pasmanda outreach.

While Ansari is getting praise from all quarters after his win, his former peers in the SP are unhappy. “He won the post of Nagar Palika chairperson because of Azam Khan’s support. He was one of the people for Azam in Suar. He wouldn’t have been able to win the elections in the past without Azam Khan’s support,” said SP district president Virendra Goel. During the campaign, Azam labelled Ansari a “namak haram (traitor)”.

Election affidavit details reveal that Ansari has movable assets worth Rs 33.96 lakh, while his spouse has movable assets worth Rs 49.35 lakh. He has immovable assets worth Rs 3.84 crore, while his wife has Rs 1.22 crore worth of immovable assets. Ansari also has loans worth Rs 33.5 lakh, while his spouse has loans worth Rs 4.34 lakh.

As per the affidavit, he has one pending case against him under the Arms Act, lodged in 2021, and has studied till junior high school.

A BJP leader in Rampur dismissed Goel’s claim. “Yes, he was in the SP, but that doesn’t mean he is a slave to Azam or the Samajwadi Party. Ansari is a very honest and hardworking politician. He has a clean record with not a single allegation of any wrongdoing in all these years.”

While he may have once been under Azam Khan’s patronage, Ansari is not shy of hitting out at the SP leader who is now bracing for an uncertain future.

In an interaction with the media after his win on Saturday, Ansari said that “Azam’s arrogance was shattered by the people of Suar”. He told The Indian Express on Sunday, “This is a stronghold of the people, not of Azam Khan or anyone. The people are supreme.”