Mohammad Azam Khan has a nickname — ‘King Khan of Rampur’. When Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav was the Uttar Pradesh chief minister between 2012 and 2017, Azam Khan’s influence sent a superintendent of police, leading a team, on a buffalo hunt in 2014. Three policemen — a sub-inspector and two constables from Gunj police station — were punished for dereliction of duty that led to the theft.
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As the Azam Khan continues to be powerful enough in the Samajwadi Party to force Akhilesh Yadav to field him from the Rampur seat. The 2022 Uttar Pradesh election is now a battle of two royals — Azam (literally meaning ‘great’) of Rampur and the Nawab of Rampur: Kazim Ali Khan.
KING KHAN OF RAMPUR
Azam Khan has been in jail for about two years on multiple charges — more than 80. He had surrendered before a Rampur court in February 2020, along with his wife Tanzeen Fatma, the MLA from the Rampur assembly seat, and son Abdullah Azam Khan, who is contesting on a Samajwadi Party ticket from the Suar constituency. Azam Khan is the Lok Sabha MP from Rampur.
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Contesting on tickets of four different parties, Azam Khan has won the Rampur assembly seat nine times since 1980. In 2019, he won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat while his wife contested in the assembly by poll in 2019.
ROYALTY IN CONTENTION
Looking for his tenth assembly poll victory from Rampur, Azam Khan is facing the area’s royal scion Kazim Ali Khan, aka Naved Miyan. Kazim is contesting on a Congress ticket.
In the fray is also Akash Saxena, fielded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Akash Saxena has built a reputation as an anti-graft crusader in Rampur, which has been politically ruled by Azam Khan for decades. One of the cases — of forgery — that landed Azam Khan in jail had been filed by Akash Saxena. But the focus of the Rampur battle is on the Kazim Ali Khan-Azam Khan faceoff.
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THE NAWABS OF RAMPUR
Kazim Ali Khan is a descendant of the Nawab of Rampur, which was a 15-gun salute state under British India. The British government used to give a 15-gun salute to welcome Rampur’s ruler. At the time of Independence, Raza Ali Khan Bahadur was the Nawab of Rampur. Kazim is his grandson.
Kazim’s parents won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat seven times as Congress candidates. His mother Begum Noor Bano won this seat twice in the 1990s. His father Syed Zulfikar Ali Khan won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat five times from the 1960s to the 1980s.
While the Nawabs of Rampur never publicly called Azam Khan their rivals, the Samajwadi Party leader, while scaling the ladder of politics in Rampur, pitted himself as their arch-rival presenting his typist father’s humble background.
FATHER, SON DUEL WITH OPPONENTS
This time around, Kazim is directly challenging Azam Khan for the first time. A four-time MLA, Kazim Ali Khan won his first election from the Bilaspur seat in Rampur district in 1996, when his mother Begum Noor Bano had won the Lok Sabha election.
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Later, he won the assembly election in 2002, 2007, and 2012 from the Suar constituency from where Azam Khan’s son Abdullah, who got bail mid-January, is contesting.
Suar is another assembly seat in the Rampur district that is witnessing a royal fight. Here, Abdullah is up against Kazim’s son Haider Ali Khan. Abdullah had defeated Kazim from Suar in the 2017 assembly election.
So, Azam Khan is fighting senior Nawab Kazim Ali Khan and his son Abdullah Azam Khan has been pitted against Nawab junior, Haider Ali Khan, who switched sides to BJP’s ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) after the Congress made him his candidate in the UP polls .
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