BJP breaches Azam’s stronghold, wins Rampur Sadar seat

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[google-translator]

LUCKNOW The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday won the Muslim-dominated Rampur Sadar assembly seat for the first time as its candidate Akash Saxena defeated his nearest rival, Asim Raja of the Samajwadi Party. This happened within six months of winning the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in June.

Azam Khan had won the Rampur Sadar Assembly seat 10 times and the Rampur Lok Sabha seat once. Rampur Sadar has more than 50% Muslim electorate and the BJP had never emerged victorious here. Bypoll to the Rampur Sadar seat, considered an Azam Khan stronghold, was necessitated after the SP leader was sentenced to three years in jail in a hate speech case, and subsequently disqualified as MLA.

BJP’s Akash Saxena defeated Azam’s nominee Asim Raza in a see-saw battle, scoring a convincing victory by a margin of 34,000 votes.

Saxena, 47, had contested from Rampur Sadar against 73-year-old Azam Khan in 2022 assembly elections, but could not defeat Khan who won despite contesting the seat from behind bars, winning for the 10th time. Asim Raza, a close aide of Azam, first lost the Rampur Lok Sabha bypolls as SP candidate and now the Rampur Sadar assembly bypolls within a span of six months.

Akash Saxena had filed about 30 of the nearly 100 FIRs in Rampur against SP leader Azam Khan, who is currently out on bail after spending nearly two years in jail. When the Rampur MP/MLA court handed out a three-year imprisonment to Azam, Akash petitioned the UP Assembly speaker to disqualify him from the membership.

The SP had left it to Azam Khan to decide the candidate for the bypolls. Khan and his camp campaigned extensively in the constituency, playing the ‘victim card’, with nearly all the top leaders of the SP focused on Mainpuri. Akhilesh Yadav ventured out to campaign in Rampur only once.

On the other hand, the BJP unleashed a campaign blitzkrieg in Rampur.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP state president Bhupendra Chaudhary, deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, several UP ministers and many others campaigned extensively in Rampur for Akash. Former union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who hails from Rampur, held several door-to-door meetings in Rampur. The BJP also held ‘khichdi panchayats’ and ‘pasmanda (backward)’ Muslim meets.

The saffron party also attempted to divide Azam Khan’s loyalists in Rampur and get support from his rivals. Local Congress leader Nawab Kazim Ali Khan announced support for the BJP, but the Congress expelled him. The BJP inducted Azam’s close aide Fasahat Ali Khan into its fold and Fasahat campaigned for the BJP.

After the poll results, chief minister Yogi Adityanath, in a tweet, said: “…The BJP won the Rampur assembly seat for the first time, greetings to the winner Akash Saxena and all the BJP workers in Rampur for this.”

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav in Mainpuri said: “Rampur saw injustice against SP candidate. Had it been a fair election in Rampur, it would have been a historic win in Rampur.”


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