Azam Khan makes his presence felt in Sunni board poll?

LUCKNOW: In jail for over a year now in connection with over a 100 FIRs lodged against him, Samajwadi Party veteran Azam Khan may be out of sight but certainly not off the political stage. So, it was no surprise when the SP’s Muslim face made his presence felt during the election of Sunni Waqf Board chairman held on Tuesday.
The election saw SP-backed Imran Mabood lose the contest by one vote after a known Azam associate, Abrar Ahmed, cross-voted.Had Abrar voted on party lines, Mabood’s victory would have come as a major morale-booster for the SP cadre and the leadership.
Though Abrar Ahmad claimed that initially Zufar Farooqui was the unanimous choice, but at the eleventh hour, ST Hasan and Nafees Ahmad changed their mind and asked him to vote for Mabood and he refused to change his stance, Samajwadi Party issued a show-cause notice to him seeking an explanation for his conduct.
A section of SP leaders is of the view that Abrar’s cross-voting only reflected his mentor Azam Khan’s disenchantment with the SP cadre and middle-rung leaders most of whom had maintained a distance from the party veteran ever since FIRs were heaped on him eventually landing him in jail along with his MLA wife Tazeen Fatima and son Abdullah. The three had surrendered before a Rampur court on February 26, 2020. Tazeen Fatima was released on bail on December 22 while Azam and Abdullah are still lodged in Sitapur jail. "Maybe it is his way of say that he may be down but certainly not out," said one of the senior functionaries
While Akhilesh not only drove down to Sitapur jail to meet Azam Khan within 24 hours of him being sent to judicial custody, he also made sure that other senior leaders visited the party MP from Rampur in jail. Barely a fortnight later, SP veteran and leader of the opposition (LoP) in the Legislative council Ahmed Hasan along with former assembly speaker Mata Prasad Pandey called on Azam at Sitapur prison, followed by LoP in the state assembly Ram Govind Chaudhary a couple of weeks later.
However, Azam’s displeasure was noticed when his brother-in-law Zameer Ahmed Khan, while talking to the media said that the senior leader was disturbed by the manner in which some people stayed away when the state government started targeting him soon after BJP came to power.