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Azam Khan meets Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow, highlights message of resilience
Veteran Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan says bond with Akhilesh spans generations; SP chief Akhilesh Yadav mentions ‘spirit of camaraderie’
In their second meeting since his release from jail, Samajwadi Party veteran Azam Khan visited the party’s national president Akhilesh Yadav at the former chief minister’s residence in Lucknow on Friday and said it was intended to convey a message of resilience and the need for justice and change.
After the visit, Akhilesh Yadav, who had earlier met Khan at Rampur on October 8, posted a picture with Azam Khan and Khan’s son Abdullah Azam on social networking platforms and wrote, “Uncountable memories they brought along, when they visited our home today! This spirit of camaraderie is our shared heritage.”
Friday’s nearly 40-minute meeting between the two SP leaders was Azam Khan’s first to Akhilesh Yadav’s house in Lucknow after his release from Sitapur jail.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Azam Khan said, “The real intent of our meeting was to show that despite the oppression and historic injustice we faced, there still exist people whose endurance is stronger than stone or mountain.”
“Many of our people are still in jail. When we meet, we remind each other of those painful times so that future generations remember that such injustice once took place,” said Khan, who was accompanied by his son Abdullah Azam.
Azam Khan also said, “Until the political system improves and people understand what is truly happening, injustice will continue. But I sense change. Those who once opposed me now come to meet me, embrace me, and weep. That is a sign of transformation.”
Speaking to a news agency after meeting Yadav at his residence in Lucknow, Khan also said, “My relationship with this home is 50 years old, which is half a century. It would take years to weaken, and centuries to break. I may not have centuries left, but this bond continues with the next generation.”
He added, “If ever a little rust gathers on it, I will clean it myself; no one else is needed.”
Emphasising his continued association with the party, the former Uttar Pradesh minister said, “We have already endured immense pain and injustice in life; there can hardly be more. Having withstood all of that, why should we part ways now?”
Khan’s son Abdullah Azam, said, “We are one family. The discussion was entirely familial, not political. What is said within families should not be discussed publicly.”
Akhilesh Yadav had met Azam Khan at his Rampur residence on October 8, 15 days after Khan was released from the Sitapur jail on September 23 after 23 months behind bars. The Allahabad high court granted him bail on September 18 in the Quality Bar land-encroachment case, where his name was added during a reinvestigation nearly five years after the FIR was filed.
The 77-year-old Azam Khan, a founding member of the Samajwadi Party and a close aide of the late party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, was once among the most influential ministers in the SP governments of Uttar Pradesh.
During the period of his incarceration and upon his release from the Sitapur jail, speculation was abuzz that Khan would leave the SP for the BSP due to rumoured tensions between him and Akhilesh Yadav. Khan, however, has categorically declined to make any such move.
Earlier, Azam Khan reached Lucknow on Thursday and stayed at a private hotel in Hazratganj area. The elder brother of late mafioso-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari Sigbatullah Ansari and MLA Mannu Ansari reached the hotel to meet Khan. This was followed by Khan’s meeting with former minister and SP leader Abhishek Mishra.
