Rift within the Samajwadi Party seem to be wide open following the party’s defeat in the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections with senior leader Azam Khan expressing his discontent to the extent that his aide said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was right in his remark that SP chief Akhilesh Yada did not want Khan to get out of jail.
“CM Yogi’s comment was right that Akhilesh Yadav doesn’t want Azam Khan to be out (of jail). We made you and Mulayam Yadav UP CM but you didn’t make Azam Khan as leader of Opposition. You only went once to meet him in the jail. Now Akhilesh Yadav feels that our clothes stink,” said Azam Khan’s media in-charge Fasahat Ali Khan Sanu.
Reacting to this, Samajwadi Party state spokesperson and national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary said: “I am not aware of any such meeting or comments. Azam Khan is with the SP and the SP is with him.”
The buzz about Khan comes amid the widening rift between Akhilesh and his estranged uncle and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Yadav and the latter’s possible shift to the BJP. Meanwhile, there has been a buzz over Khan planning to part ways with the Samajwadi Party and float his own political party.
Azam Khan is currently in Sitapur jail from where he fought the 2022 UP assembly elections and won the Rampur seat for the tenth time.
Earlier, Azam Khan had been out of SP for almost a year after the party had expelled him in May 2009 for six years. The expulsion was revoked in December 2010 and he rejoined the party. During the period of his expulsion, he did not ally with or join any other party.