The Samajwadi Party is facing a challenging task in finding a suitable candidate for the Rampur Lok Sabha seat for the upcoming parliamentary election.
Mohammad Azam Khan, the co-founder of the party and its prominent Muslim face, his wife and legislator son have been convicted and are in jail. They have been convicted for seven years’ of imprisonment and so are disqualified from contesting elections.
The SP is in search for a new face for the Rampur Lok Sabha seat. Sources in the SP say that Azam Khan will have a significant role in the selection of the candidate. The SP is not inclined to give a ticket to the elder son or the daughter-in-law of Azam Khan.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had wrested the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in the 2022 by-election and the incumbent MP in the Muslim-dominated constituency is Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi. He defeated Mohammad Asim Raza of the SP in the bypoll by over 42,000 votes.
Azam Khan was elected to the Uttar Pradesh assembly in 2017. Later, he contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election and won. A few months later he was convicted and sent to jail. He contested the 2022 UP assembly election from Rampur assembly constituency and won while he was still in jail.
In yet another setback to SP and Azam Khan, in the ensuing by-election following the conviction of the SP leader, the BJP won the bypoll to Rampur assembly seat in December 2022. Akash Saxena became the first Hindu to be elected MLA from Rampur assembly constituency and broke the hold of the SP’s Muslim face Azam Khan, who had been getting elected from there since 1980.
Even as the Congress and SP, both constituents of the opposition INDIA bloc, have finalised the seat sharing, Congress is hoping to get the Rampur Lok Sabha seat. Under seat sharing formula, Congress will contest 17 Lok Sabha seats in UP and SP will contest the rest of 63 seats. The Rampur Lok Sabha seat is in the quota of SP. Delay in selecting a candidate for this seat could hurt the electoral prospects of the SP.
Azam Khan, his wife Tazeem Fatma and their son Abdullah Azam Khan were sentenced to seven years in jail by a court in Rampur in October 2023 in connection with a fake birth certificate case.
Abdullah Azam Khan is accused of obtaining a passport based on one birth certificate and using a second certificate for government-related purposes. The first birth certificate, issued on June 28, 2012 by Rampur nagar palika, shows Rampur as Abdullah Azam Khan’s birthplace. In January 2015, a second birth certificate was issued showing Lucknow as his birthplace.
The Rampur Lok Sabha constituency has five assembly segments – Rampur, Bilaspur, Suar, Chamraua, and Milak. Of these, Rampur assembly seat was considered to be the bastion of the Azam Khan family, having been won by Azam Khan or his wife Tazeen Fatma between 1980 and 2022.
