The return of a diminished Azam Khan

On September 23, as Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan stepped out of Sitapur jail after 23 months of incarceration, hundreds of supporters greeted him with slogans and sweets. Having fought a prolonged battle to get the 104 cases against him quashed or be granted bail, Mr. Khan seemed like a patriarch in the autumn of his political career. Gone was the untrammelled roar, the biting sarcasm of his heydays. Even as his supporters raised the slogan ‘Inquilab aaya (Revolution is here)’, he simply waved at them. As he talked slowly of the imprisonment having kept him away from the vicissitudes of the political world, and the need for medical recuperation, revolution was the farthest thing from his mind. Only once did he allow himself a flashback by raising a fist at his supposed opponents when he reached Rampur city.

For decades, Rampur had been his den. Last week, it was merely home. His cavalcade had come to a halt. His supporters, who for years had lined up the streets, dwindled to a few hundred. Party president Akhilesh Yadav had made favourable noises earlier in the day about Mr. Khan being a victim of the Adityanath government’s vendetta politics and had promised to bury all the cases against him once the SP assumed power. But Mr. Yadav’s absence in Sitapur and Rampur lent credence to the sentiment that Mr. Khan had been left to fend for himself. He was the Old Turk in the party run by young guns. On his release, his loyal supporter, Moradabad MP Ruchi Veera, received him. Missing from the scene was the Rampur MP, Mohibbullah Nadwi. In Ms. Veera’s presence, and Mr. Nadwi’s absence, the battlelines were drawn for both the SP and one of its founding fathers.

Last year, as Mr. Khan cooled his heels in Sitapur jail, Mr. Yadav is said to have picked two candidates, Mr. Nadwi and S.T. Hasan, for the Rampur and Moradabad constituencies, respectively. Mr. Nadwi as the serving imam of the Jama Masjid in New Delhi was Mr. Yadav’s last-minute gamble, while Mr. Hasan was the sitting MP who had bucked the rampant march of Hindutva forces in the 2019 general elections.

Mr. Khan would have none of it. His no-nonsense response to the party’s choice meant Mr. Hasan was replaced at the last minute by Ms. Veera even though his preferred candidate did not get the nod from Mr. Yadav in Rampur. Mr. Khan had won half the battle.

While many anticipate the turf war to resume, some of Mr. Khan’s confidants have selectively leaked information to the media that his wife and former Rajya Sabha MP, Tazeen Fatima, recently met Bahujan Samaj Party supremo, Mayawati, and that Mr. Khan may be ready to mount the elephant. Others point out wishfully that Mr. Khan may join forces with Asaduddin Owaisi to rally the Muslim youth. Far from it. Mr. Khan has always been his own man, a political general who thrives on the passion of faceless multitudes. The 10-time legislator is at his best when faced with an adversary. For years, he was Mulayam Singh Yadav’s go-to man until he was briefly trumped by Amar Singh. It led to a peculiar situation where Mr. Khan did not openly rebel against the senior Yadav but nursed his bruised ego at home. Meanwhile, Mr. Singh’s favoured candidate, film star Jayaprada, won the Rampur seat for the party for the second time in 2009. Mr. Khan swallowed the bitter pill but returned to drub her a decade later when she was the BJP’s candidate.

The challenge this time is steeper. Mr. Yadav is the unquestioned party supremo and the Adityanath government has not always been above board in foisting cases against political opponents. Mr. Khan’s family faces 160-odd cases. Worse, Mr. Khan is disqualified from contesting elections. At best he can assume the role of a remote control and prop up his loyalists. It is a role that will be foreign to a man who has basked in the limelight from the early 1990s when much of his rabble-rousing speeches passed off as the anguished cry of the minorities. Indeed, with his aggressive posturing during the Ayodhya agitation, Mr. Khan promised a revolution that would bring the masses to the streets for the fulfilment of their demands and foisted himself as the sole spokesman of the largest minority in Uttar Pradesh.

That is a role he can no longer audition for. Once the king of the political chessboard, Azam Khan can now at best hope to be the knight.