Azam takes oath, skips Budget session

Samajwadi Party (SP) senior leader and Rampur MLA Azam Khan, just released from jail after 27 months, reached UP Vidhan Bhawan on Monday morning and took the oath of office

Samajwadi Party (SP) senior leader and Rampur MLA Azam Khan, just released from jail after 27 months, reached UP Vidhan Bhawan on Monday morning and took the oath of office. His son who also is an SP MLA and had not taken an oath till now also took the oath.

Azam Khan and his son, Abdullah, with speaker Satish Mahana in Lucknow on Monday (HT Photo)

However, Azam skipped the joint session of the UP legislature on its first day. But Abdullah attended it. Sources aware of developments in the party said that Azam took the oath and would attend the session on Tuesday.

Azam’s oath-taking but leaving the Vidhan Bhawan soon after, further escalated the speculation over his relationship with the party. Azam and Abdullah had also skipped the crucial SP legislature party meeting summoned by the party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday.

The father-son duo had left Rampur on Sunday night and had reached Lucknow hours after. In the morning, Akhilesh had a 20-minute conversation with Azam over the phone, sources aware of the developments said. But when the newspersons asked him about the conversation, Azam refused to divulge any details saying: “Why would I tell you which vest I am wearing under my kurta”.

Azam repeated, when asked if he was upset with Akhilesh Yadav or the party: “I am not upset with anyone. Thanks to those who came to meet me (in prison), and also to those who could not”.

A leader in the SP said: “Azam is with the SP and will stay with the party. There are no problems. He is distressed over his long time in jail and the injustice done to him. He is collecting himself. Abdullah joining the session is an indication enough that the family is with the SP as always. He is in Lucknow at his Dar-ul-Shafa government flat and will attend the session tomorrow”.

The Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief and SP MLA Shivpal Yadav, amid his continued estrangement with the SP chief and nephew Akhilesh, also attended the session on Monday.

Azam won the Rampur assembly seat in 2022 as the SP candidate, while his son Abdullah won another Rampur seat - Suar in the polls.

Since early April, when an Azam aide had charged Akhilesh and the party with neglecting Azam and Muslims, at a Samajwadi Party meeting in Rampur, there had been speculations that Azam might defect from the party. Also, Shivpal and Congress leader Pramod Krishnam met Azam in jail, but he refused to meet the SP delegation. Apart from this, given the overtures from other parties--BSP, Congress, AIMIM, there had been speculations that Azam might move away from the SP.

Even now, when Azam is out of jail since Friday on an interim two-week bail granted by the Supreme Court, he has not cleared the air on which way he is headed. He continues to talk cryptically.

In Rampur, on Sunday night, while leaving for Lucknow, Azam Khan expressing fear that he might be killed, had said: “When an inspector can threaten in the jail, ‘go underground, you have several cases against you, you can get encountered,’ then it is difficult to say what my journey is, in the face of such dangers.”

Around 10.15 am, the speaker, Satish Mahana, administered the oath of office to Azam Khan and then to Abdullah. “The Speaker congratulated them both and wished them success and fame as MLAs and asked them to participate in the discussions in the Assembly and play their role in redressing public problems,” a statement from Mahana’s office read.