UP Elections 2022: Jailed SP Leader Azam Khan Registers Big Win From Rampur Seat

Khan grossed 1,31,225 seats, beating out BJP's Akash Saxena, who managed to pick up 76,084 seats.

Senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and jailed MP Azam Khan.

(Photo: The Quint)

Senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and jailed MP Azam Khan, has won by 55,141 votes from the Rampur Assembly seat in Uttar's Pradesh's Rampur district, defeating the BJP's Akash Saxena.

Khan grossed 1,31,225 votes, defeating Saxena, who managed to pick up 76,084 seats.

The senior politician, who has been in jail since February 2020 with close to 100 FIRs lodged against him, had won from the Rampur Assembly seat in the 2017 polls, defeating Shiv Bahadur Saxena of the BJP by a margin of over 45,000 votes.

After the 2019 bye-election, his wife, Tazeen Fatma, was elected as the MLA from the Assembly segment.

Khan has previously been elected as the MLA from the Rampur constituency nine times, and was a cabinet minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government from 2012 to 2017. He was a Rajya Sabha MP from 1996 to 2002, and won the Lok Sabha seat for Rampur in the 2019 general elections.

He has obtained bail in several cases against him but remains lodged in Sitapur jail because he has not yet obtained bail in some of them.

How the SP Fared in 2017 Polls

The SP had contested 311 out of 403 seats, and had fought the state polls in alliance with the Congress in the 2017 state Assembly polls in UP.

The election was swept by the BJP, which had won 312 seats, with SP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and Congress following closely with 47, 19 and seven seats, respectively.

The voting for the seven-phase UP Assembly polls ended on 7 March.