Muslims Boo Azam Khan off Kanpur Stage

Samajwadi Party (SP) worries continued to mount on Tuesday, as party general secretary Azam Khan – chief guest of a programme organised by a local Muslim youth organisation in Kanpur got involved in an argument with the audience bringing the programme to an unscheduled and abrupt end.

Khan, who is said to be on the rebuild within the party and the incident came on a day when top Mulayam Singh aide Amar Singh threatened to quit the SP due to Khan’s rise to limelight from the ashes that were brought forth by the party’s decision to induct former UP chief minister and top BJP leader Kalyan Singh into its fold.

Kalyan Singh was the chief minister of the state on December 6 1992, when the disputed Babri Masjid structure was demolished by an amalgam of right-wing organisations ;ed by the ruling BJP in the state.

The SP rose to power in the state after 1992 with huge support from the minority
Muslim voters in the state that since then have vote against both the BJP and the Congress in the state.

Khan, a key Muslim leader from the SP, had rebelled against the party after it decided to induct Kalyan Singh and the widening gap was only recently bridged by party chief Mulayam Singh.

Khan, while attending the programme organised by the Ansar Youth Federation was incensed when the audience targeted him with tough queries on his political affiliation and the Kalyan Singh issue.

Replying to the queries in anger Khan got his first taste of minority ire, as his attempting to justify the SP decision to take Kalyan Singh into its fold, were badly booed by the audience.

The audience soon started to hurl chairs and a whining Khan soon whimpered out of the venue and Kanpur.

The SP later said it had nothing to do with the programme and said Khan was on the war-path with the party despite positive overtures by Mulayam Singh.

Whatever be the case within the SP, but if the minority anger in Kanpur is anything to go by, the party certainly has a tough time ahead in its scramble for a larger share of Uttar Pradesh’s Lok Sabha pie.