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Ahead of Rampur bypoll, BJP connects with Azam Khan’s Muslim vote bank in his bastion
The Rampur Sadar assembly by-election has been necessitated by Azam Khan’s disqualification following his conviction in a 2019 hate speech case on October 27.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday displayed attempts to breach Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan’s bastion as it organised the first-ever ‘pasmanda (backward)’ Muslim meet in the Rampur Sadar assembly constituency where a bypoll is scheduled for December 5.
The Rampur Sadar assembly by-election has been necessitated by Azam Khan’s disqualification following his conviction in a 2019 hate speech case on October 27.
The meet was organised months after the BJP won the SP bastions of Rampur and Azamgarh in the Lok Sabha bypolls in June.
The Rampur Sadar assembly has always eluded the BJP. Khan has won the seat 10 times. His sole loss in the Rampur Sadar assembly constituency came in 1996.
“The doors of our government are always open for you in Lucknow. ‘Kamal (lotus), will bloom here,” deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak said at the meet.
Nevertheless, BJP leaders attending the meet stayed clear of any direct attack on Azam Khan.
Instead, they focused on how “gareeb” (the poor)” have benefited under BJP.
“Ask yourself, have the poorest of the poor among you ever benefited through anyone else apart from the double engine BJP government?” Pathak asked.
“You were discarded just as ‘tez patta (bayleaf)’ after being used in biryani, is discarded. It’s time you ushered in a qualitative change,” he said while listing out various pro-poor schemes of the BJP governments.
He kept referring to PM Narendra Modi’s slogan of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas’.
Junior minority welfare minister Danish Azad Ansari said voters are set to make a change.
“We saw how the Muslim approach, even in minority dominated booths, has been changing. The minorities have realised chief minister Yogi Adityanath has worked for all sections of the society,” Ansari said.
A meeting of the BJP core committee to decide the candidates for December 5 bypolls was held at the chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s residence.
“The names would be announced after the process is followed and taking all factors into consideration,” a senior BJP leader said, when asked about the likely candidates in Rampur, Mainpuri and Khatauli.
The SP has announced party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple as its candidate from Mainpuri, but is yet to name a candidate for Rampur (Sadar). The SP has given Khatauli assembly seat in Muzaffarnagar to its alliance partner Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
The bypolls for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha and the Khatauli assembly seats will also be held on December 5. Votes will be counted on December 8 for all three constituencies.
“The SP is feeling the heat. That is why in Mainpuri they could not think of fielding anyone outside the family. In Rampur, the buzz is that someone from Khan’s family will contest. It proves the SP is nervous in what was termed as its bastion,” BJP spokesman Avnish Tyagi said.
Since 2014, the BJP has won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat twice (2014 Lok Sabha polls and 2022 by-polls).
Breaching the Rampur assembly seat is the party’s focus, BJP leaders admit.
Samajwadi Party leaders, however, differed with the BJP.
“In the 2019 bypoll for the Rampur assembly seat, too, attempts were made to derail the campaign of Azam sahib’s wife who contested after he was elected Rampur MP. Yet, she won by bagging 60 per cent votes,” an SP leader said.
“Azam has always portrayed himself as a leader who stood for the poorest of the poor. And through the pasmanda Muslim meet, the BJP is suggesting the poor have benefitted through various schemes of the double engine BJP government at the Centre and in UP,” said Irshad Ilmi, a political expert.
