Azam Khan’s son Abdullah likely to be debarred from polls for 6 years

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party MP Azam Khan’s son Abdullah Azam, who has been disqualified from the state Legislative Assembly for quoting the wrong date of birth by furnishing a fake birth certificate in his poll affidavit, is likely to be debarred from contesting elections for six years.

Principal secretary, UP Assembly, Pradip Dubey, has referred the matter to the President of India for his opinion under Section 8 (A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 over the issue. His move comes following the opinion of the law department which had recommended the debarment of Abdullah Azam from contesting elections for indulging in 'electoral malpractices'.

The President is likely to take any decision over the issue only after taking the opinion of the Election Commission of India. On its part, the poll panel would take the state law department’s recommendation into account before sending its opinion to the President.

Abdullah would likely become the first leader in the country to be debarred from contesting the election for at least six years.

Abdullah, along with his MP father Azam Khan, and MLA mother Tazeen Fatima, is languishing in Sitapur jail for almost six months now. All three have been named in a number of criminal cases.

Abdullah was elected as an MLA from Swar Tanda in 2017 when he was not 25 years old. He was accused of contesting and winning election by furnishing a fake birth certificate. The Allahabad High Court held his election invalid in December 2018 after the allegations were found to be true. The Assembly Secretariat had issued a notification dismissing his membership.

Recently, the Assembly secretariat received petitions from Akash Saxena of the BJP and Nawab Qazim Ali of the Congress, seeking his debarment from contesting the elections.

If Abdullah is debarred from contesting Assembly polls for six years, it would be a unique case in electoral history and a setback to Rampur’s strongest political family.