New Delhi: Nand Kishor Gurjar, a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Loni constituency in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, has stirred up a row, levelling allegations of corruption against the state police and government officials.
“Uttar Pradesh has the most corrupt government at present. In Ayodhya, officials have captured the land, fake encounters are taking place. Officials are misleading the chief minister. The chief secretary himself is corrupt,” Gurjar said Friday in Ghaziabad, a day after video clips of an altercation between him and Uttar Pradesh Police personnel came into circulation on social media.
Gurjar alleged that he was stopped by the police for taking out a ‘Kalash Yatra’—a Hindu ritual—in Ghaziabad, and manhandled by the cops Thursday. He also claimed that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is being misguided by the officials running the government.
In one video clip, Gurjar can be heard challenging the Uttar Pradesh Police and chief secretary to try and stop Namaz (Muslim prayers) “If this is Ram Rajya, why is Ram Katha being interrupted?” the MLA can be heard saying.
This is, however, not the first time that Gurjar has spoken against the state government officials. Last month, when Maha Kumbh was underway in Prayagraj, he had blamed concerned officials for the stampede. He had also alleged corruption in the tender distribution process for the event, demanding action against Chief Secretary Manoj Singh.
A few days later, he had staged a protest against Ghaziabad Police by selling vegetables at a weekly market over the police’s decision to shut down such markets, displaying his support for affected vegetable sellers.
According to Uttar Pradesh BJP functionaries, Gurjar, who belongs to Other Backward Classes, is creating trouble for the party by questioning the BJP government. Before him, a few other OBC leaders, including MLA Yogesh Verma, and ministers Sanjay Nishad, Ashish Patel and O.P. Rajbhar had raised similar issues regarding officials who work closely with the chief minister.
A senior party functionary said, “The chorus of OBC leaders criticising their own government is growing. We need to sort this out as non-Yadav OBCs make up the biggest chunk in terms of caste equations in Uttar Pradesh. In 2024, many surveys showed that a major section of non-yadav OBCs voted for the INDIA bloc.”
The functionary added that no action has been taken against Gurjar yet, which means he has “support” from Delhi, hinting towards the party’s top functionaries.
Meanwhile, BJP’s state unit chief Bhupendra Chaudhary said that it is the party’s internal matter and will be resolved soon.
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Gurjar’s political journey
Gurjar, 48, is a two-time MLA from Loni. He started his political journey with the Samajwadi Party in late nineties as the student union president of Ghaziabad’s Shambhu Dayal PG College.
In 2006, he formed the ”AJGAR Sena”—an outfit for Ahirs (Yadavs), Jats, Gujjars and Rajputs. According to one of his close aides, the motive of forming this group was to unite OBCs in western Uttar Pradesh.
This close aide added that during the initial stages of his career, Gurjar was influenced by former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. In 2009, however, came the turning point when he saw a dead cow in an allegedly minority-dominated area in Ghaziabad, and protested against it. This drew him to the Hindutva ideology, his aide said. As Samajwadi Party did not support him in his protest back then, he joined BJP in 2010 after meeting Rajnath Singh, who was the Ghaziabad MP at the time.
He sought a BJP ticket in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, but was ignored. Between 2012 and 2017, he focussed on the activities of AJGAR Sena. In 2017, BJP fielded him from Loni and he defeated Bahujan Samaj Party’s sitting MLA Zakir Ali by a margin of over 42,000 votes.
He had made headlines in the state’s political corridors for the first time, when over 100 MLAs had staged a dharna against the Yogi government in the state assembly in January 2020 over the police’s “attitude” towards the sitting MLAs. It was Gurjar who had raised the issue in the assembly on 17 December, 2019, but was not allowed to speak. He then staged an impromptu sit-in protest, and was joined by BJP legislators as well as those from Opposition parties. The assembly proceedings were hastily suspended.
During the pandemic, he had accused officials of negligence. In a video clip, he was heard saying that the police could even “shoot those who violate Covid protocols in the legs if they do not listen”.
He had also stirred another controversy in 2020 by asking people celebrating Eid-ul-Adha to “sacrifice their children instead of animals”. He had also said “meat spreads coronavirus” and so, people should not be allowed to sacrifice animals.
BJP leaders in western Uttar Pradesh call him an asset for the party. ”Nand Kishore is not just doing Hindutva politics, he is also a Gurjar leader. The community has an impact across at least 20 assembly constituencies of western UP. The party cannot ignore him. He also runs an OBC outfit with a presence in over a dozen districts of the region,” a senior functionary told ThePrint.
The leader further said that Gurjar shares good rapport with Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya, and other OBC leaders of Uttar Pradesh BJP, and that he is aware of his value as a Gurjar leader for the party, which is why he keeps questioning the senior officials.
ThePrint attempted to reach Gurjar for a comment, but he was not available to respond.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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