‘Want someone to come and shoot me in the head?’: Azam Khan during Rampur campaign

Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, while campaigning in Rampur for civic polls late Friday evening, said he feared of being shot dead in a similar manner to gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed.

“What else do you want from me and my children?… Do you want someone to come and shoot me in the head? That is all that is left,” said Khan. He was clearly referring to Atiq Ahmed who was shot dead along with his brother while in police custody, on their way to get medical tests.

Days earlier, Ahmed had told the media that he and his family had been “reduced to dust”, with “nothing left”.

Azam Khan who was suffering from a prolonged illness, took to the stage after a long time to campaign for SP Nagar Palika Chairman candidate Fatima Jabeen and others in his bastion of Rampur.

“We will cast our vote, it's our birthright but that too is being snatched from us twice, if it gets snatched thrice then you won't even to the right to breathe," he said while referring to his disqualification from the House in October last year after a court convicted him and sentenced him to three years in jail in a hate speech case.

The case was registered against Khan in April 2019 for levelling serious allegations against administrative officials posted in Rampur, PM and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in 2019 during an election rally.

Earlier Allahabad High Court in May 2022 had granted interim bail to Azam Khan in a matter which was related to a wrongful possession of Waqf board property land.

His son Abdullah Azam was later disqualified from his Suar Assembly seat, after a conviction over an episode of blocking traffic. The bypoll for this seat will be held on May 10.

Azam Khan who is well-known for his sarcastic statements, was elected MLA from the Rampur Sadar constituency. He had earlier attacked BJP-led government in both UP and centre and ended up calling his opponents "political eunuchs".

“You should save India, you should save the law of the land,” said an emotional Khan to the crowd. “You don’t need to give yourself anything, except encouragement. Where you are stopped, you should sit (in protest). You must move ahead, and not stop.”

Khan was referring to the Samajwadi Party’s defeats in the bypolls for Rampur parliamentary seat and Rampur Assembly constituency. The bypoll for the Lok Sabha seat was won by the BJP’s Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi in June last year, while the Assembly seat was won by Akash Saxena in December last year.

“Those who are saying today that the municipality is on contract, they had put the whole country on contract, Red Fort has been sold, airports have been sold, ports have been sold, railways have been sold, what is left? Only the army is left. It's with Hukumat-e-Hind, it should remain. Our army and the government's army are two different things. Our army is yours and we have seen this army fighting at every corner and have won," said Azam Khan.

"'Vazir-e-Azam' (Prime Minister) of India has mentioned your Rampur assembly seat in a Hindustan of 150 crore people, this is your status. There is so much fear of you, and this fear is not of any caste, nor of my being a minister, nor of my being an MP or MLA, but it's the fear of our unity and the trust we share. Whatever happened, whether I remain a member of the Legislative Assembly or not, a person who's in his young age, his legislature was abolished twice, mine and Abdullah's (his son) right to vote were abolished," he said further.

Khan said the defeat of the SP candidates, including BJP’s Saxena, the litigant against Khan in many of the cases against him, would not have been possible without police and administration high-handedness.

“You say you will undertake development. You can’t even write development as your ink has dried… If you were real men, you would allow an election. Was that an election?… I challenge that from among the 150 crore people in India, someone should come to Rampur, and fight elections against (the people of) Rampur. And if Rampur wins, you should vacate Rampur,” Khan said, adding that such was the importance of Rampur that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not ignore it.

He accused the authorities of “atrocities” in Rampur saying that CAA-NRC protesters were also beaten up here. Telling the people to bide their time, the SP leader added: “Nowhere has Allah said that he is with the namazis, or those who fast or those who are Hajis. But there is one promise by Allah that He is with those who have patience.”

Khan urged people not to take the elections lightly because these were for urban local bodies. “This department used to be called Local Self Government. It is a government in itself.”

The bypoll for Suar is therefore significant. While the SP has fielded first-timer Anuradha Chauhan, BJP ally Apna Dal (S) has put up Shafiq Ahmed Ansari, who belongs to the Pasmanda Muslim community that the BJP is wooing.