In Rampur, Azam Khan charm wanes

This time, the resurgence of the BJP has got the Kurmis and Lodh-Rajputs to turn to BJP candidate Naipal Singh, a Lodh-Rajput. In 2009, the BJP stood fourth, getting less than 70,000 votes in a seat where Muslims make up 50 per cent of the vote.

At Kemri town, Sagir Ahmad is in a group discussing politics over evening snacks. “The contest will be between the Congress and the BJP,” he says. The others in the group, mostly Muslims, disagree loudly, telling him the BJP doesn’t stand a chance. Ahmad presses on, saying his transport business takes him all over the constituency and he has seen a slowly rising support for the BJP among Kurmis and Lodh-Rajputs. Nobody in the group questions if the Congress is indeed the best placed to give the BJP a fight. Azam and the SP don’t figure in the conversation.

It’s only in Rampur city that Azam and candidate Naseer Khan seemed to have a presence. Naseer had lost the 2012 assembly poll from Chamraua in Rampur.

Azam’s appeal drastically wanes outside Rampur city. “Has he (Azam) ever worked for villages?” says Imran Ali, a chemist at Chamraua. The group gathered outside his shop nods, agreeing that Khan’s candidate is no good.

While the SP and Congress separately woo the Muslim support-base, the BJP is upbeat about the backing of the Gangwars and Lodh-Rajputs. It shows in the campaign. “Cows are being slaughtered… Whom do you want? Butchers or our brother (BJP candidate Naipal Singh),” Anil Basishth, a Bajrang Dal activist, asks a small gathering at Dhanaura village.