Nawabi food and nawabi airs

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav with senior party leader Azam Khan in Lucknow in March 2018. | Photo Credit: RAJEEV BHATT

Dear Readers,

All of us have heard of the razor-sharp edge of the Rampuri knife. The politics of Rampur has an equally sharp edge and this time, it is literally a double-edged sword for the Samajwadi Party. By ruling out the recommendations of its jailed party MP and veteran leader Azam Khan, who dominated the political landscape of Rampur like a colossus, the party has clearly decided to walk on a knife’s edge.

The saga of Rampur has all the ingredients of a Bollywood potboiler—behind the bars is a dominant neta, whose writ once ran large in the region for nearly a half century, an acclaimed film heroine, who kept political netas on tenterhooks for close two decades has finally exited the arena, while the city’s Nawab family is fast fading into oblivion.

From once being a Congress bastion and then a socialist constituency, Rampur seems to be waking up to the call of saffron now.

The seat was represented in 1952 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Zulfiqar Ali Khan, who won the seat five times between 1967 and 1989, was the titular Nawab of Rampur between 1982 and 1992. His wife Begum Noor Bano won the seat in 1996 and 1999. The family is out of the race now. The BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was also the MP from Rampur in 1998.

The 10-term MLA from Rampur Sadar and its Lok Sabha MP in 2019, Azam Khan (76) shot into national notoriety when in 2014 he sent senior policemen chasing after seven buffaloes that had gone missing from his farmhouse in Rampur.

That was not the only instance of his high-handedness. The Jats in Muzaffarnagar accuse him of having facilitated the release of some Muslim youths accused of the retaliatory killing of two Hindu boys in the city, an incident that later flared up into the massive communal riots of 2013, ultimately propelling the BJP into power and turning western Uttar Pradesh into the laboratory for hardline Hindutva politics. The Jauhar Trust founded by Khan was accused of land-grabbing and Khan’s infamous temper had also targeted several bureaucrats.

While there are conflicting versions of all this, there is no dispute about the steel grip Khan had over Rampur and his dominating influence on the minority politics of the Samajwadi Party. It earned him the acronym of “Super CM” at one time, when he held seven ministries between 2012 and 2017.

Now behind bars, Khan has been demanding tickets for his favourites, but SP boss Akhilesh Yadav has held back. Khan’s sidekick Asim Raja had even filed his nomination as the official candidate, but Akhilesh has fielded Mohibullah Nadvi, another Rampur resident and the Imam of a mosque on New Delhi’s Parliament Street. Nadvi, although a little-known name in political circles, is not just another Imam who leads prayers and goes back home. He was instrumental in giving space to women in New Delhi’s Jama Masjid and he also participated in the anti-CAA agitations both in Delhi and Rampur. Today if the Imam wins, Azam Khan loses. But if the Imam loses, the Samajwadi Party loses.

Then there is the film star. Back in 2004, when Jaya Prada’s name was proposed as the Samajwadi Party candidate for Rampur by Amar Singh, Khan had agreed, possibly thinking that she would smile, wave, and never be seen again.

To his surprise, Jaya Prada made Rampur her second home and worked actively with the women of Rampur, and the bidi and zardoji workers. She set up Mahila haats in Rampur, made a failed attempt to create a Delhi Haat replica, and built some 26 small bridges in Rampur which connected villages otherwise marooned during the monsoon.

So, when she returned to contest from SP for the second time in 2009, Azam Khan opposed her candidature tooth and nail, so much so that wherever she went, his followers showed her black flags. Morphed pictures of Jaya Prada were also circulated but despite all this, she won the seat. Azam Khan was clear that only he should contest from Rampur or somebody he handpicks.

And Mohibullah Nadvi is not his choice. The Imam was picked for this seat by Shafiqur Rahman Barq, the former MP of Sambhal, who passed away recently. Barq had introduced Nadvi to Akhilesh. Fortunately, the meeting and Nadvi’s candidature were decided before Barq passed away. That it was a tussle became clear when on the final day of nomination, Akhilesh flew in six candidates, one senior MP, and other party office bearers to Rampur to support Nadvi’s candidature.

While Akhilesh might have asserted himself against Azam Khan, BJP’s sitting MP Ghanshyam Lodhi is eyeing victory. There could be a division in SP’s votes—Khan’s supporters are not seen campaigning for Nadvi. Lodhi won the seat in the 2022 Lok Sabha byelection, and the BJP had won the seat earlier in 1991, 1998, and 2014. With the BSP fielding a Muslim candidate in Zeeshan Khan here, the odds are stacked against the SP.

Khan, in jail in a hate speech case after being bailed out in a case of forging his son’s birth certificate to enable him to contest elections, is unlikely to come out any time soon. Ironically, Khan, who shot to fame with his speeches during the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992—recorded cassettes of his speeches sold like hot cakes in Rampur then—will not participate in the election being held just months after the Ram temple’s inauguration in Ayodhya.

Rampur is about more than its famous chaku (dagger). There is the Rampur gharana of music and Rampuri cuisine is equally famous with its royal Awadhi and Afghani dishes. The place has also always had a very rich cinema culture. Some 50 years ago, the town used to have seven cinema halls, when other small towns this size did not have more than one or two. And Bollywood films were released here just one week after Delhi or Bombay. This rich cinema heritage might have been one reason why Jaya Prada won here.

Another reason why Jaya Prada won at that time was the support she got from the women of Rampur, who identified with her traditional Hindu woman roles. This time around, the Hindu identity has got other props.

Thank you for reading Poll Vault, our election-ready newsletter. Watch this space as campaign season heats up. Until then...

Anand Mishra | Political Editor, Frontline

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