It is a sign of the winds of change within the Samajwadi Party that for the first time since its inception in 1992 the SP has fielded a candidate in Azam Khan’s stronghold Rampur contrary to the veteran leader’s wishes, giving rise to the theory that it may be the beginning of the end of the relationship between Khan and party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
The ties between the two leaders were labelled as frosty in recent times and Akhilesh has been under fire for not championing the jailed Azam’s cause with the expected zeal.
With his mentor and party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav no more and Azam himself in jail, the veteran leader’s clout in the party may have diminished as speculation swirls that Akhilesh was not comfortable with Azam as he belonged to the old guard.
This perception about the fall from grace of Azam, who was considered the second most powerful figure in the government after the chief minister during the SP regime, has now been fuelled by the political drama that unfolded over the party’s candidates in Rampur and Moradabad the previous day. Claiming to be the authorised party nominee, two candidates each in both constituencies had filed their nomination papers on Wednesday, causing confusion.
It seems the seeds of the present discord were sown soon after Akhilesh Yadav met senior leader Azam Khan in Sitapur jail on March 22. Till then, all had seemed well in the party.
{{/usCountry}}It seems the seeds of the present discord were sown soon after Akhilesh Yadav met senior leader Azam Khan in Sitapur jail on March 22. Till then, all had seemed well in the party.
{{/usCountry}}In fact, the meeting seemed a goodwill exercise to send a favourable message to the Muslim electorate that Akhilesh was with Azam against the “injustice” done to him.
During the jail meeting and afterwards, Azam attempted to prevail over Akhilesh in getting his protege Ruchi Veera fielded on ST Hasan’s Moradabad seat and shift Hasan elsewhere. With Akhilesh refusing to play ball entirely, there was intense confusion within the SP over Moradabad and Rampur tickets.
“On the surface, Azam Khan reportedly had asked Akhileshji to contest the Rampur seat, but all that was his trademark sarcasm. He wanted the sitting Moradabad MP ST Hasan to be denied the ticket or shifted elsewhere and Ruchi Veera to replace Hasan in Moradabad,” a senior SP leader said.
Akhilesh conceded on Moradabad but surprised all by fielding his pick for Rampur — Maulana Mohibullah Nadvi, the Imam of Delhi’s Parliament Street mosque. The move, it is felt in SP circles, could create a rift between Akhilesh and Azam in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and beyond.
Nadvi originally hails from Rampur and his candidature is being seen in the SP circles as an attempt to take Rampur’s control away from Azam.
Moreover, Akhilesh and the SP state unit did not inform the local Rampur district unit (considered under Azam’s control) and flew in the SP state president Naresh Uttam Patel to Rampur and got Nadvi’s nomination filed on the last day on Wednesday. Mohd Asim Raza, considered Azam’s protege, too, filed his nomination papers. The nomination of Raza, who had contested the 2022 Rampur Lok Sabha bypolls and the 2022 Rampur assembly bypolls and lost, was rejected.
Rampur is among the five seats that the SP had won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Eventually, the BJP wrested the Rampur seat in the 2022 LS bypolls when Azam relinquished the Lok Sabha seat and retained the Rampur assembly seat.
Two days after Akhilesh met Azam, the SP formally declared sitting MP ST Hasan as the Moradabad candidate and allotted him the party symbol. Hasan filed his nomination on Tuesday, but the next day SP allotted the symbol to Ruchi Veera, whose nomination has been accepted and ST Hasan’s rejected.
“I am and will stay an SP worker. Will do whatever responsibility I am given by the party leader but will not campaign in Moradabad for it will break the heart of my supporters who had been working for my victory,” said Hasan, 65, a doctor by profession.
Several Moradabad SP workers protested on Wednesday and Thursday against the SP move to bring in Ruchi Veera.
Ruchi Veera, 61, is an SP leader who contested the 2012, 2017, and 2022 assembly elections on the Bijnor seat. She won the seat in the 2014 bypoll by a narrow margin.
Now, the contest in Moradabad will be among the SP’s Ruchi Veera (a Vaish upper caste), the BJP’s Kunwar Sarvesh Kumar Singh (Thakur upper caste), and the BSP’s Irfan Saifi. In Rampur, sitting BJP MP Ghanshyam Lodhi is pitted against the SP’s Mohibullah Nadvi and the BSP’s Zishan Khan.