Azam Khan sitting pretty in Rampur

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

Rampur, April 14

Congress candidates could spoil Mahagathbandhan’s gameplan in several parliamentary constituencies of Uttar Pradesh. But in Rampur, alliance nominee Mohammad Azam Khan of the SP is better placed to win the seat with the Congress deciding not to field a candidate from the local Nawab’s family. 

Rampur, which goes to the polls in the third phase on April 23, is set to witness a close contest. Khan is pitted against BJP’s Jaya Prada and Congress’ Sanjay Kapoor, who was Bilaspur MLA in 2012 -2017, one of the five Assembly segments of the Rampur Lok Sabha constituency.

Ramakant Shastri, who teaches at a local collage, says: “This time, the BJP will find it difficult to win the seat as the Congress has fielded a candidate who is not from the Nawab’s family. In 2014, Nawab Kazim Ali Khan had polled a little more than 1.5 lakh votes, which helped BJP’s Nepal Singh (3,58,616 votes) defeat SP’s Naseer Ahmad Khan (3,35,181). Congress nominee Sanjay Kapoor is unlikely to make a dent in Azam Khan’s minority votes.”

Naseer Khan, who runs a transport business, is of the same view. “Khan Sahib must have spoken to Rahulji and that is why the Congress has fielded Kapoor so that there is no division of minority votes,” he says. Sita Ram Yadav, the pradhan of Chakrapur Village which falls in the Milak Assembly segment of the constituency, says there is no doubt that minority votes, critical for winning the seat, will go one way. “But it is yet to be ascertained how well the SP-BSP alliance is working on the ground. People joke that SP’s cycle (poll symbol) has a flat tyre with the elephant (BSP symbol) pedalling it.”