BJP Ally Apna Dal (S) First Muslim Candidate "Haider Ali Khan"

Mr. Khan is the first Muslim candidate since 2014

Lucknow: Ahead of the state Assembly polls, the ruling party BJP's ally Apna Dal (S) has declared its first candidate for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.

The candidate, Haider Ali Khan, is from Suar in western Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district, from where Abdullah Azam, the son of jailed Samajwadi Party MP Azam Khan, might contest.

The tie-up announcement came despite no official word on the seat-sharing arrangement between the BJP and its alliance partners - Apna Dal (S) of Anupriya Patel and the Nishad party of Sanjay Nishad.

Haider Khan's candidature from a BJP ally is among the rare instances of the BJP alliance fielding a Muslim candidate for the UP election.

Looking at Mr Khan's background, he is from the Rampur Royal family, his grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Khan was a five-term Congress MP from Rampur. His father, Nawab Kazim Ali Khan, is a four-term MLA who as of now is the Congress candidate from Rampur which is a seat located next to Suar.

The Apna Dal (S) candidate has been in the news for U-turns. He was first named the Congress candidate from the Suar constituency.

After that, he went to Delhi and met Anupriya Patel, who has now officially named him as her party's candidate from Suar.

Abdullah Azam contested the 2017 Assembly election from Suar as a Samajwadi Party candidate and won. In December 2019, the Allahabad High Court cancelled Mr. Abdullah's election victory because he was below 25 when he filed his nomination for the 2017 elections.