BJP Causes Upset in Uttar Pradesh, Defeats Samajwadi Party in Rampur
19:31 08.12.2022 (Updated: 19:05 13.12.2022)
© Photo : BJP Uttar Pradesh
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Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district is considered to be the fiefdom of Samajwadi Party (SP) strongman Azam Khan. In the past, he and his family members have won multiple elections from there.
In what could be dubbed as a major upset, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trounced the Samajwadi Party in the bypolls to the Rampur Sadar assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday.
The constituency is regarded as the pocket borough of veteran SP politician Azam Khan who captured the seat many times between 1980 and 1993 before bagging it once again in this year's assembly elections held in March.
The bypoll in Rampur was necessitated following Azam Khan's disqualification from the state assembly after his conviction in a hate speech case related to the 2019 general elections.
Ahead of the 2019 parliamentary elections, Khan was charged with hate speech against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh state chief Yogi Adityanath, and IAS (civil servant) officer Aunjaneya Kumar Singh, who was the district chief of Rampur at the time.
The constituency is regarded as the pocket borough of veteran SP politician Azam Khan who captured the seat many times between 1980 and 1993 before bagging it once again in this year's assembly elections held in March.
The bypoll in Rampur was necessitated following Azam Khan's disqualification from the state assembly after his conviction in a hate speech case related to the 2019 general elections.
Ahead of the 2019 parliamentary elections, Khan was charged with hate speech against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh state chief Yogi Adityanath, and IAS (civil servant) officer Aunjaneya Kumar Singh, who was the district chief of Rampur at the time.
BJP candidate Akash Saxena was declared the winner from Rampur by the Election Commission of India after he defeated Asim Raja, a close aide of Azam Khan by a margin of over 34,000 votes. While Saxena received more than 81,000 votes, his opponent Raja was favored by 47,271 people in the election.
The win in Rampur is possibly one of the biggest victories for the BJP in the state, considering the party never won the seat in the past. It failed to win in the constituency even when the BJP swept the state in 2017, winning 312 seats in the 403-member legislative house.
The BJP's historic win in Rampur is among the many first accredited to State Chief Yogi Adityanath.
In March, he became the first State Chief to retain power in India's most populous state in more than 35 years.
Under his leadership, the BJP also became the first party to form back-to-back majority governments in Uttar Pradesh in over three decades.
The win in Rampur is possibly one of the biggest victories for the BJP in the state, considering the party never won the seat in the past. It failed to win in the constituency even when the BJP swept the state in 2017, winning 312 seats in the 403-member legislative house.
The BJP's historic win in Rampur is among the many first accredited to State Chief Yogi Adityanath.
In March, he became the first State Chief to retain power in India's most populous state in more than 35 years.
Under his leadership, the BJP also became the first party to form back-to-back majority governments in Uttar Pradesh in over three decades.
