The seven-time Samajwadi Party (SP) legislator and Uttar Pradesh's powerful minister for public works has over the years acquired the status of an emperor who brooks no dissent.
Call him mantriji, Aali Jinab or simply a politician cast in the old-time mould of a temperamental, autocratic ruler, Azam Khan's word is law in Rampur. The seven-time Samajwadi Party (SP) legislator and Uttar Pradesh's powerful minister for public works has over the years acquired the status of an emperor who brooks no dissent.
Like yesteryear emperors, his confidants say, he slips from the back gate of his home in an old car or on a motorcycle past midnight to personally oversee development and plan his next moves. He has the eye of Mughal emperor Shahjahan, adds another aide on a poetic note.
Born to Mohammad Mumtaz Khan, Khan started out as a leader of bidi workers and rickshaw pullers. The series of victories and the proximity to the SP top order make Azam's word final in Rampur. There is no second-rung leadership challenging him, and his own unpredictable nature means no one can claim proximity to him either. You never know when his mood swings.
After agreeing to an interview, at his ashram inside the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jowhar University, often referred to as his personal fiefdom, he gets irritated after just a few questions. Asked about why no other Muslim leader was being allowed to come up in the SP and resorting dynastic politics by fielding his son, Abdullah Azam, from the nearby constituency of Suar-Tanda, he abruptly ended the interview. "You have come here with an agenda to help the BJP. You are in search of headline against me," he ruthlessly asked this correspondent to leave the campus -- and then the city -- as soon as possible. That is the mood of a melancholic emperor.
As Khan contests another election, it's a view that people in Rampur endorse. Notwithstanding his power, there is a question mark over his victory.
"We have our Aali Jinab saab. We have hopes from him. Inshallah, his party will win again," said Mohammad Usman who works in a welding shop on Diamond Street in Rampur city. The contest, he said, was between the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which is fielding Tanveer Ahmed Khan.
Most voters are not so outspoken, however. The fact that many are keeping surprisingly silent about who they will vote for suggests that not all is well in the Khan kingdom.
The SP government's failure to effectively handle communal violence and also Khan's autocratic attitude and the failure to release "innocent" Muslim youth from jails, nine of them from Rampur itself, have cast doubts on his victory.
Khan's decision to crack down on the illegal plywood business has also left people angry. "The BSP and Congress may not have done anything for us but at least they didn't destroy livelihoods of people. About 1 lakh people working in the wood business are without a livelihood because factories have been shut down," said Umesh, a mechanic.
Similar sentiments were expressed by a gardener at the Raza Library campus. "What can I do with these parks and roads… it is to beautify for you who have come from outside. I need food and my sons need jobs," said the aged gardener.
With another election under way, tales abound about his quest for power and his enormous clout.
No other beacon fitted vehicle can move in the vicinity of Rampur. Officials at the district magistrate office told DNA that they once had to politely tell Shivpal Yadav, fellow minister and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav's brother, to remove beacons from his vehicle. Khan had ordered that they were not allowed in the city.
He has stamped his name in stone – literally. At every corner of the city, all local municipality projects are dedicated to Azam Khan with his name carved in stone.
A few years ago, UP Police had to scramble to trace his buffaloes that had one missing from his farmhouse in Rampur. The entire Rampur police force was at the crime scene literally within minutes of the theft being reported, insiders told DNA.
The probe was led by district chief superintendent of police Sadhna Goswami himself. Since 2012, when the SP came to power, Rampur has seen six district magistrates, since Khan hardly allows any officer to stay put. Officers talk of Azam's sharp tongue, and the dressing-downs in public, though no complaint reaches Lucknow even unofficially.
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