New Delhi: Haider Ali Khan, the BJP-led NDA’s sole Muslim candidate in Uttar Pradesh, fielded by ally Apna Dal (Sonelal), looked set to lose in the Suar constituency of Rampur district. He was trailing by more than 33,000 votes according to data available on the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) website at 4.30 pm.
Khan contested against former SP MLA Mohammad Abdullah Azam Khan, son of SP heavyweight Azam Khan, who is currently in jail. Azam Khan was in the lead, with 68,624 votes, while Haider Ali was second with 34,812 votes,
Haider Ali Khan, also known as Hamza Miyan, is the heir to the Noor Mahal palace and is the grandson of the last Nawab of Rampur, Syed Raza Ali Khan.
The 30-year-old’s father, Kazim Ali Khan, or Naved Miyan, contested from the same seat in the 2017 assembly polls but lost. This time, Naved Miyan contested from the neighbouring Rampur seat against Azam Khan. Azam Khan looked set to win with a comfortable margin of over 46,000 votes, with Kazim Ali Khan not even in second place.
Haider Ali Khan joined the Apna Dal (Sonelal), helmed by Union Minister of State Anupriya Patel, in January this year.
Khan’s grandmother, Begum Noor Bano, has also been a Lok Sabha MP — she won the Rampur seat on Congress tickets twice, in 1996 and 1999.
In the 2017 elections, Mohammed Abdullah Azam Khan had won the Suar seat by more than 53,000 votes, beating his nearest rival, the BJP’s Laxmi Saini, who won 26 per cent of the votes. Saini was closely followed by Nawab Kazim Ali Khan, who fought for the BSP, and got 20 per cent of the votes.
Kazim Ali Khan left the BSP in 2019 and joined the Congress. He also filed petitions against Mohammad Abdullah Azam Khan, after which the Allahabad High Court in December 2019 annulled his election from the Suar seat on the ground that Abdullah Azam was not qualified to fight the polls in 2017 as he was underage.
The BJP didn’t field any Muslim candidate in the 2017 and 2022 assembly elections in UP.
(Edited by Saikat Niyogi)
Also read: New election, old rivalry: Jailed Azam Khan & son make it ‘people vs nawabs’ in Rampur & Suar