Another Election Show: In Azam Khan-bastion Rampur, what’s the poll plank? Ram mandir or jobs?

Polling for the Lok Sabha elections is set to begin. So, Atul Chaurasia and Manisha Pandey have hit the ground, to bring you the most authentic voices on Another Election Show – starting from Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur.

Rampur – a bastion of the now-jailed Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan – is one of the 102 seats to go to polls in the first phase of the elections beginning on April 19. The constituency with 52 percent Muslim vote share, and 48 percent vote share of Hindus and others, has been a stronghold of the Congress, and then Azam Khan.    

But after Khan’s conviction in four cases in October 2022, is the constituency again charting its own course? In the 2022 by-elections, the BJP’s Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi won the seat. Is he looking at a repeat win?   

Meanwhile, the SP has fielded Mohibullah Nadvi, imam of a Delhi-based mosque, who has been unable to appeal to Khan’s supporters. The Bahujan Samaj Party’s candidate is Zeeshan Khan. Will it divide the Muslim votes? 

Newslaundry spoke to the students of Rampur’s Raza PG College and advocate Junaidur Rahman about the undercurrents ahead of the polls, the local politics, and issues that matter the most.  

How’s the table turning in Rampur? Watch.