LUCKNOW: Senior Samajwadi Party leader and UP minister Azam Khan is finding himself in a piquant situation. He is under ‘twin’ attack from the blue brigade in his constituency Rampur from where the minister is contesting for his ninth victory.
The BSP has fielded Dr Tanveer Ahmad Khan from Rampur against Azam Khan. A doctor by profession, Dr Tanveer, interestingly, is assisted by his twin brother Dr Mahmood Ahmad Khan, his look-alike.
Their looks are so similar that the two brothers carry out the campaign at two places simultaneously and people are not able to make out the difference.
The siblings resemble each other so much that even if those who know them for quite some time, can’t identify who’s who. Dr Tanveer accepts that his brother was a great help to him as his campaign is picking up at double pace.
“We are twins and he is a boon for me,” says Dr Tanveer, referring to his brother, “he is undertaking door-to-door mass contact while I am holding public meetings. Wherever he goes, people think it is me.”
On his brother’s prospects, especially, when he has to face as big a leader as Samajwadi Party’s Azam Khan, Dr Mahmood feels that by virtue of being doctors, they are very well known in the city and enjoy a lot of goodwill.
“This will benefit my brother,” says Dr Mahmood Ahamad Khan. “People react to both of us in the same manner even if we are going to different areas for campaigning. People think him to be me,” says Tanveer.
Dr Tanveer Ahmad Khan is fighting on a BSP ticket and is posing a formidable fight to Azam Khan.
Azam has been ruling the roost here since 1980 when he won for the first time on Janata Party ticket. Since then, he has lost just once — in 1996. In 2012 Assembly elections, Dr Tanveer, then a
Congress candidate lost to Azam by over 60,000 votes.