Samajwadi party heavyweight Azam Khan, who has been lodged in jail since February 2020 in connection with a fake birth certificate case, will be reportedly fighting the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections from the Rampur seat.
Khan’s son, Abdullah Azam, who was released from Sitapur Jail last week, will also be fighting the assembly polls on an SP ticket. Azam Khan is reportedly selected as the SP candidate from the district assembly seat while his son Abdullah Azam will contest from Swar Tanda(Suar).
सूत्र- आज़म खान रामपुर सीट से विधान सभी चुनाव लड़ेंगे, अब्दुल्ला आज़म को स्वार-टांडा सीट उम्मीदवार बनाया #upelection2022 #bjp #samajwadiparty @shalabhmani @1chandniverma pic.twitter.com/lmsLqz6ROY
— News18 Uttar Pradesh (@News18UP) January 18, 2022
Rampur is a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party, especially Azam Khan, who has been elected 9 times from the said constituency. In 2017, when BJP swept Uttar Pradesh, Khan had managed to retain his Rampur seat by defeating Shiv Bahadur Saxena of BJP by 47,000 votes.
Khan’s son Abdullah Azam too had won the assembly elections in 2017 from the Swar Tanda or Suar seat, but his election was deemed invalid by the Allahabad High Court on the ground that he was underage to fight the 2017 Assembly polls. The father-son duo approached the Supreme Court but they got no reprieve from the apex court, which upheld the High Court’s decision.
It is worth noting that Abdullah Azam was released from Sitapur jail on Saturday last week. Khan has 43 cases lodged against him in Rampur and had got release orders in all the cases.
Azam Khan lodged in jail since February 2020, several cases filed against him
Azam Khan and his son have been lodged in jail since February 2020 in a case pertaining to a fake birth certificate produced by Khan’s son Abdullah Azam who had won from Suar assembly seat in 2017. Abdullah Azam was also detained in August 2019 from Mohammad Ali Jauhar University for hindering investigation as the premises were being raided to recover books stolen from a 250-year-old madrasa. The father-son duo is facing cases pertaining to land grabbing by the university.
Khan had landed in a major land grabbing case after irregularities and allegations against his family’s Mohammad Ali Jauhar University surfaced in 2019. The University was raided by Rampur police following a complaint by the principal of Madrasa Aliya, wherein he stated that 9000 books and rare manuscripts from the Madrasa have been stolen.
It was first land-grabbing, then lion statues, followed by books and valuable manuscripts. He has also been booked for ‘stealing buffaloes’ and later the Rampur MP was also booked for electricity theft. The power supply to Azam Khan’s resort ‘Humsafar’ in Uttar Pradesh was cut after raids were conducted in the resort by the Uttar Pradesh electricity department.
Besides several other cases are also lodged against SP leader Azam Khan. In September 2019, Rampur Police in Uttar Pradesh had booked Azam Khan on allegations of ‘stealing goats’ following the complaint which was filed in October 2016.
