Even in 1977 when anti Congress was at its peak in UP, the Rampur assembly constituency went in favour of the Congress. But after that Rampur had been electing SP leader Azam Khan barring one occasion when he lost to Afroz Ali Khan of Congress in 1996. In 2014, the SP’s Naseer Khan had secured a lead of 22520 votes over its nearest BJP rival Nepal Singh in the Rampur assembly segment despite the Modi wave. Azam Khan is once again in the fray in Rampur as an SP nominee for his ninth term. Pitted against him is the BJP candidate Shiv Bahadur Saxena who had represented the Suar assembly seat from 1989 to 2002 on behalf of BJP.