AFTER DISTANCING itself from its “pro-minority” image during the recent Lok Sabha elections where it fielded just four Muslim candidates, the Samajwadi Party appears to be making efforts to reach out to the community ahead of the high-stakes bypolls for nine Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh.

On Sunday, after addressing a rally in the Muslim-dominated Kundarki Assembly seat in Moradabad district, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav visited the family of jailed party leader and former MLA Azam Khan in Rampur, and assured that if the SP returned to power, its government would withdrawal the “false” cases against Khan.

During his rally, Akhilesh also countered Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on his “batenge to katenge (divided we fall)” remark by invoking his PDA formula, pitching for the consolidation of “alpasankhyak (minority)” with “pichde (backward)” and Dalit communities, and accused the BJP government of targeting institutions like Aligarh Muslim University and Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur that was founded by Khan.

“The court would give justice but the government is imposing false cases on Azam Khan. We are with Azam Khan ji and have been fighting against the false cases imposed on him. We are getting close to forming a government,” Akhilesh said in Rampur after meeting Khan’s family.

Khan, the SP’s most prominent Muslim face and one of its top leaders under Mulayam Singh Yadav, has found himself sidelined in the party under Akhilesh. However, during this year’s Lok Sabha elections, Akhilesh had tried to correct that image by visiting Khan in the Sitapur district jail.

He has raised the issue of Khan’s arrest now when not only the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), but also the AIMIM and the Chandrashekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party (ASP) are trying to draw Muslim support by alleging the SP benefited from minority votes but has since forgotten them.

Akhilesh’s visit to Rampur came just a day after Azad, the ASP MP from Nagina, visited Khan’s son Abdullah Azam, a former SP MLA who is lodged in the Hardoi jail on cheating and forgery charges. Azad has alleged that a “family that cared for the poor is now being neglected by all”. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has also been making overtures to Khan to join his party.

Even SP MP and Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav, who usually stays away from controversies, recently spoke out against the request by some religious leaders to not allow “non-Hindu” shops in the Maha Kumbh Mela area next year. She said such statements hurt the “Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (Hindu-Muslim unity)” of the country and that those making such statements do not want the country to function as per the Constitution. Her statement drew flak from office-bearers of the Akhara Parishad.

In the bypoll for Kundarki, vacated after SP MLA Zia ur Rehman Barq became the Sambhal MP, SP candidate Mohammad Rizwan is up against the AIMIM’s Mohammad Varish, the BSP’s Rafatulla, and the ASP’s Chand Babu. SP sources admit there is apprehension that the minority vote could get split among the other four Muslim candidates, with the BJP looking to consolidate Hindu votes behind its candidate Ramveer Singh, with Adityanath’s “batenge to katenge” narrative.

Apart from Kundarki, the SP is also eyeing a consolidation of minority votes in the Meerapur seat, which also has a considerable minority population.

In the absence of the Congress in these bypolls, consolidating OBC, minority and Dalit votes behind it is even more crucial for the SP, particularly as it pushed to keep the upper hand in their alliance.

Sources in the party say that beyond the bypolls, the party is also looking at sending the right message before the 2027 Assembly elections.