Amid twists and turns, how drama unfolded over Samajwadi Party candidates in Rampur and Moradabad

Marked by several twists and turns, political drama unfolded in the Rampur and Moradabad Lok Sabha constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh where two candidates each in both seats claimed to be the authorised Samajwadi Party nominee on Wednesday, the last day of filing nominations. Hours later, the party cleared the confusion.

Both Rampur and Moradabad in western Uttar Pradesh are going to polls in the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections on April 19.

The fast-paced developments came to the fore when, apparently overriding the Azam Khan camp’s protest, the Samajwadi Party fielded Delhi-based cleric Maulana Mohibullah Nadvi on the Rampur Lok Sabha seat. Queering the pitch for Nadvi, Azam Khan’s loyalist and SP city president Mohd Asim Raza, who lost the Rampur Lok Sabha by-poll in June 2022 after Khan vacated the seat, also filed his nomination for the Rampur seat and claimed to be the original party candidate.

Nadvi, who filed his nomination in the presence of the party’s state president Naresh Uttam Patel who was rushed to the constituency, said he had the backing of party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

The moves came despite the demand by the party’s Rampur unit that Akhilesh Yadav himself should contest the Lok Sabha polls from the jailed Azam Khan’s stronghold Rampur.

In Moradabad, the SP’s former Bijnor MLA Ruchi Veera filed her nomination papers and claimed to be the party’s official candidate, a day after the Samajwadi Party’s pre-declared Moradabad candidate and sitting ST Hasan filed his nominations papers on Tuesday. Ruchi Veera was said to be an Azam Khan loyalist.

Amid the claim by Ruchi Veera’s supporters that she was now the party candidate, there was also the buzz that Hasan will remain the party’s official nominee. Supporters of Hasan took to the streets and burnt Ruchi Veera’s effigy in Moradabad.

Later in the evening, the SP leadership cleared the confusion and declared Muhibullah Nadvi from Rampur and Ruchi Veera from Moradabad as its authorised candidates.

Party’s national spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said the sitting MP from Moradabad, Hasan’s ticket has been cancelled. In his place, former Bijnor MLA Veera has been made the party candidate.

Apart from this, Nadvi is the party’s authorised candidate from Rampur, he said.

Nadvi is the imam of Parliament Street Jama Masjid in Delhi.

Chaudhary admitted that earlier there were some doubts regarding the candidates on both the seats but later they were rectified.

Before the party cleared the air, Nadvi said, “SP president Akhilesh Yadav ji has sent me. Azam Khan is also my sympathiser and I pray for him. I have filed my nomination from the Samajwadi Party and I have also got the cycle symbol.”

On his part, Raza, told reporters, “We have filed our nomination as a Samajwadi Party candidate. Who will contest the elections will be decided on March 30 (the date of withdrawal of nominations).”

On the question that along with him, Nadvi has also filed nomination as the SP candidate from Rampur, Raza said, “I am saying that 20 people should file the nomination... What will happen with that? Everything will be finalised on the 30th March.”

Regarding the Moradabad seat, Veera told reporters that the party leadership has given her the ticket and hence, she has come to file the nomination.

On Hasan, Veera said, “He is not my rival but my elder brother.”

Meanwhile, sitting MP and BJP candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi filed his nomination papers for the Rampur Lok Sabha seat on Wednesday.

The BJP has fielded five-time MLA and former MP Sarvesh Kumar Singh from Moradabad.

The nomination papers will be scrutinised on Thursday while the last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 30.

Rampur was the bastion of Azam Khan for the past over four decades. He had been elected MLA from here 10 times and had represented the seat in Parliament once.

On Tuesday, a letter by Azam Khan was circulated by party’s local unit in which Khan said a fair election was not possible in Rampur.

Azam, who is in Sitapur jail, also invited party chief Akhilesh Yadav to contest from Rampur in order to boost the morale of party workers and concluded the letter by giving him final authority to decide the name of the candidate for the Rampur seat. SP district president Ajay Sagar had released the letter saying: “We invited party’s national president Akhilesh Yadav to contest from Rampur Lok Sabha constituency to change the atmosphere of atrocities against party supporters.”

The letter came days after Akhilesh Yadav met Azam Khan in the Sitapur jail and reportedly discussed the upcoming polls.

The Samajwadi Party had won the Rampur and Moradabad Lok Sabha seats in 2019 but the BJP wrested the Rampur seat in the June 2022 by-poll that was held after Azam Khan’s election to the state assembly, from which he was later disqualified the same year on his conviction in a hate speech case.

On March 18 this year, a court in Rampur had sentenced Azam Khan to seven years’ imprisonment and imposed a ₹8 lakh penalty on him in a case of forced demolition of a house in 2016 in the Dungarpur area of Rampur.

This was the fifth case in which Khan has been sentenced. He has been acquitted in two cases.