No nomination for Rampur assembly seat so far

Bareilly No candidate has filed his nomination for the Rampur city assembly seat going to polls along with 10 other constituencies on October 11, five days after the nomination process began on Monday.

What is more, the Samajwadi Party and the BJP, the two major contenders for the seat which fell vacant after Mohd Azam Khan of SP resigned following his election to the Lok Sabha in 2019, are yet to announce their candidates. The Congress and the BSP have taken a lead on this front. While the Congress had decided to field Arshad Ali Khan, the BSP has also put up a Muslim, a former customs officer Zubair Masood Khan.

“Around 16 people have so far purchased nomination papers but nobody has filed nomination so far,” said an official at the Rampur collectorate where tight security arrangements have been made.

The last date of filing nomination is September 30. Rampur has been the bastion of SP lawmaker Khan who barring 1996 (when he lost to the Congress), has not lost a single election since 1980 and managed to retain his seat even during the BJP’s landslide win in 2017.

While Khan’s wife Tazeen Fatima is also a Rajya Sabha MP, his son Abdullah Azam is a legislator from neigbouring Suar assembly constituency. Both Tazeen and SP’s city president Asim Raza have purchased nomination papers amidst the buzz that one of Khan’s kin may be fielded by the SP to cash-in on the ‘sympathy’ among the people over the way he has been ‘targeted’ by the ruling BJP.

The BJP too seems to have adopted a wait-and-watch strategy and is keeping its cards close to its chest on its candidate. While party’s district president Mohan Lal Saini has procured a set of nomination paper, some other BJP leaders who are also weighing their options and have bought nomination papers include Bharat Bhushan Gupta, Deepa, independents Narendra and Farhat Ali Khan.