A court in Rampur on Saturday awarded a two-year jail term to Samajwadi Party general secretary Azam Khan for threatening a government officer.
A popular Muslim face of the SP, Azam is already serving a seven-year jail term in a forgery case.
A case was filed against him at the Bhot police station in Rampur during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign for making an objectionable remark against the then district electoral officer. “Don’t worry, don’t fear the collector. Don’t fear someone who is on the payroll. You must have seen how Mayawati (former chief minister and BSP president) made them clean her shoes with their kerchiefs. I’ll make them clean my shoes if god wishes,” Azam was quoted as saying in Hindi at a rally.
The MP/MLA special court of Shobhit Bansal found Azam guilty of violating the model code of conduct and intimidating the officers on duty. The court also imposed a fine of ₹20,000 on him.
The SP leader and his son, Abdullah Azam Khan, have been in jail since November 2025 after a magistrate’s trial court sentenced them to seven years’ imprisonment in a case related to possession of two PAN cards. BJP leader Akash Saxena had moved the court against Azam and his son. Azam was also in jail for two years in 2024 and 2025 on multiple theft, land-grabbing and forgery charges.
Abdullah was elected SP MLA from Suar in Rampur in 2017, but was disqualified after Allahabad High Court found discrepancies in his election affidavit. Saxena, the man behind most of the cases against Azam and his family members, was elected a BJP MLA from west Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur in the 2022 byelection.
