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Known as the Samajwadi Party bastion and home of veteran party leader Azam Khan, the Rampur Lok Sabha Constituency in Uttar Pradesh is set to hold the first phase of Lok Sabha elections tomorrow, that is, April 19, Friday.
Voting will commence at 8:00 a.m. and conclude at 5:00 p.m., with an additional hour provided as a buffer period for voters who are already present in the voting line.
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 by-poll 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.
Mohibullah Nadvi, SP:
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.
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.
Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi, BJP:
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.
Zeeshan Khan, BSP:
Bahujan Samaj Party has declared Zeeshan Khan, who has been associated with the party for a long time, as its candidate from the Rampur Lok Sabha seat.
Zeeshan Khan has been associated with BSP for the last 12 years. He has worked as sector in-charge. Along with this, his uncle Shahab Khan and aunt Shaila Khan have also contested the municipality elections. Shaila Khan has been a councillor and has also contested the election of municipal president.
