A court in Uttar Pradesh sentenced Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan to two years in jail for making objectionable remarks against government officials during the 2019 Lok Sabha poll campaign.
From royalty to a tea vendor-turned-politician's wife and from a first lady to a Bengali actress, the 18 Muslim women who treaded the hallowed corridors of power in the Lok Sabha are an eclectic mix, with each of them having an interesting backstory, but one common thread -- their path to power was always strewn with struggle and hurdles.
A total of 78 Muslims were in the fray in the Lok Sabha elections this year, a significant drop from the last polls when 115 Muslim candidates were fielded by various parties.
The BSP has not entered into any alliances and has also been keen to shed the tag of being a 'B-team' of the BJP.
The BJP lost 15 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. Union ministers have been deployed in all 15, tasked with turning the result around.
The counting began at 8 am to decide the fate of the candidates contesting the polls, among whom all eyes will be on Dimple Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and the wife of Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav in October.
Khan, who is currently lodged in Sitapur jail, has been replaced by Mohibullah Nadvi, a cleric of a mosque located on Delhi's Parliament Street.
The seats held by the non-BJP parties in the state are Bijnor, Amroha, Moradabad, Sambhal, Raebareli, Ghosi, Lalganj, Jaunpur, Ambedkarnagar, Ghazipur, Shravasti, Mainpuri, Saharanpur and Nagina. Of these, Raebareli is held by Sonia Gandhi of the Congress.
BJP candidate Akash Saxena defeated his Samajwadi Party rival Asim Raja by 33,702 votes.
Elections will also be held in 35 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which won 25 seats in the Himachal Pradesh elections, suffered a setback in the assembly segments falling under Shimla, Hamirpur and Kangra parliamentary constituencies in the hill state.
The outgoing Lok Sabha had 23 Muslim MPs, the most being from Congress and TMC. The highest number of Muslim MPs were in 1980 when as many as 49 MPs from the community which constitute nearly fifth of Indian population present in the Lok Sabha.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday met senior party leader Azam Khan at Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, a meeting that came amid speculations of a rift between both leaders.
"It is a historic day. We are making history today," Law Minister said.
Poonam, a 38-year-old woman who came to India from Pakistan in 2004, has been granted Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). She had been living in Rampur on a long-term visa and expressed joy at finally being recognized as an Indian citizen.
The announcement came days after party president Akhilesh Yadav met Khan at a Delhi hospital, where according to sources they discussed the bypolls to the Rampur seat.
Pradhan, who had filed his nomination on Wednesday, said he accepts the decision of party national president Akhilesh Yadav, who he met in the morning.
Azam Khan is currently a member of Parliament from Rampur Lok Sabha.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
The ruling BJP-led coalition ended Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan's over four-decade dominance in Rampur with its ally Apna Dal-Sonelal winning the Suar assembly by-election by a margin of 8,724 votes.
In a setback to the main opposition Samajwadi Party, the BJP wrested both Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
According to poll observers, there are about 3.88 lakh voters in Rampur assembly constituency and of them, about 2.27 lakh, about 60 per cent, are Muslims.
In a jibe against people leaving his side and joining the ruling party, senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan has said that after the declaration of the results of the Rampur assembly bypolls, the Muslim community will mop the floor for the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav on Monday alleged that the police and administration are preventing people from casting votes in Mainpuri parliamentary and Rampur Assembly constituency in the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh.
With the BJP denying a renomination to Naqvi to the Upper House, and no Rajya Sabha renomination either for Sayyed Zafar Islam or MJ Akbar -- both of whom are also completing their tenures soon -- the party now has no Muslim member of Parliament from either House.
The SP's Uttar Pradesh president Naresh Uttam will, however, continue to remain in his position.
The BJP got the benefit of a split in Muslim votes in some seats of western UP, and its candidates registered wins from Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Aligarh Lok Sabha seats.
In a setback to Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, a Rampur court on Thursday rejected his petition challenging his conviction in a hate speech case that led to his disqualification from the Uttar Pradesh assembly.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
Negi's remarks came after Kangana shared images of her visit to a flood-devastated region of her home state.
Clash of the two richest titans, a celebrity and a 'royal', is on the cards in Himachal Pradesh's Mandi Lok Sabha constituency, known for electing erstwhile 'royals' maximum number of times.
Outside Rampur, Azam Khan's name may be an alias for controversy. But Rampur's voters believe that all the improvements in their constituency has been accomplished only by the man they have elected 8 times to the state assembly.
A win for SP could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls.
The BJP, which won the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh in 2022 bypolls, hopes to wrest Mainpuri too.
Jaya Prada and Azam Khan have a long-running feud.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday dubbed the electoral bonds as the 'world's biggest extortion scheme' and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the 'champion of corruption'.
The ruling BJP in UP, however, lost Khatauli to Samajwadi Party ally Rashtriya Lok Dal.
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