Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said in Rampur on Saturday that all criminal cases lodged against party’s Rampur MP Mohammad Azam Khan by the Yogi Adityanath government would be withdrawn after his party was voted back to power in the 2022 UP Assembly election.
Expressing solidarity with the party MP and his family over registration of over 81 criminals cases against them by the authorities, Akhilesh Yadav said that he along with other SP leaders were ready to go to jail in support of Khan.
“We are collecting information about all FIRs lodged against Khan and I will meet Governor Anandiben Patel and apprise her of the injustice being meted out to our MP,” the SP chief said.
Akhilesh said, “Samajwadi Party leaders are used to facing repression by the state. Once as many as 100 FIRs were lodged against Mulayam Singh Yadav by Bahujan Samaj Party Chief Minister Mayawati but all of them were later quashed by the court. The Yogi government is doing the same against Khan.”
Daring Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the SP chief said, “You construct jails and we are ready to go there. We SP leaders know well that if we go to jail, then the next government in UP will be ours.”
In Rampur, Akhilesh met SP leaders at the Humsafar resort owned by Rajya Sabha MP and Azam Khan’s wife Tazeen Fatma. Party leaders from nearby districts reached Rampur to meet the party president and expressed their support for Khan.
Earlier, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav had given a call for an agitation by party workers over harassment of Khan by Rampur district authorities.
Attacking the Yogi government over law and order and rising crime, Akhilesh said that everyone termed SP regime as a government of goondas. “Now what should we call this government, whose Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister have several FIRs and BJP legislators are involved in gang-rape and other serious crimes?” he asked.
“It has been proved that the government is protecting BJP MLA from Unnao, Kuldeep Sengar in a rape case while the police are biased in a rape case against a senior BJP leader in Shahjahanpur,” the SP chief said referring to Swami Chinmayanand.
Meanwhile, in a bizarre incident, a SP leader dressed like a groom to escape arrest by the police and meet Azam Khan.
Feroz Khan from Sambhal wore a groom’s sehra in an attempt to dodge the police and enter Rampur, where Section 144 has been imposed, but he was taken into custody and later released.