Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Nand Gopal Gupta aka Nandi’s future in the BJP is mired in uncertainty, according to senior leaders of the party’s Prayagraj unit, who say that “recent events do not augur well” for him.
Speculation that Nandi — BJP’s incumbent Prayagraj South MLA who enjoys the support of the baniya and traders community — was being “sidelined” arose after the party inducted Nandi’s arch rival Rais Chandra Shukla and denied a ticket to the minister’s wife Abhilasha Gupta for the upcoming municipal elections.
The denial of a ticket to Abhilasha, who has been Prayagraj mayor since 2012, came after allegations were levelled against Nandi by Ayesha Noori, sister of slain gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed, that the minister had “borrowed Rs 5 crore” from her brother.
Instead of Abhilasha, the BJP on 16 April announced Ganesh Kesarwani, a leader from the baniya community, as its mayor candidate, and then inducted Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Shukla on 22 April.
“Noori’s allegations gave ammunition to a camp within the state BJP against Nandi. A senior-most leader from Prayagraj dialled Delhi and started preparing the ground to ensure Nandi’s wife didn’t get a ticket for the municipal polls,” a senior leader from the BJP’s Prayagraj unit told ThePrint, adding that Shukla, “who was already looking to join the BJP, got backhand entry”.
Nandi, a former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader who hails from Prayagraj, was a mithaai shop owner before he joined politics. In the 1990s, he was associated with a company selling ghee and medicines and later opened his ‘Nandi Group of Companies’.
He won his first election in UP in 2007 from Prayagraj South on a BSP ticket, defeating BJP’s Keshari Nath Tripathi. While he lost the 2012 election, he was elected again from the seat in 2017 on a BJP ticket.
Nandi is known for organising traders’ events in his constituency and last year held screenings of a biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In March last year, he had felicitated the team behind the film The Kashmir Files, and reportedly donated Rs 1 crore for the construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
Noori’s allegations
On 6 March, hours after one of the accused in the 24 February murder case of BJP leader Umesh Pal was killed in an alleged police encounter, Ayesha Noori had addressed a press conference in Prayagraj alleging that Nandi, UP industries minister, had taken Rs 5 crore from her brother Atiq and was not returning the money.
Atiq Ahmed’s sister Ayesha Noori and other ladies of the family held a press conference on Monday.
pic.twitter.com/MkcP6i4bMK
— Ahmed Khabeer احمد خبیر (@AhmedKhabeer_) March 6, 2023
“Nandiji had taken Rs 5 crore from my brother. When my brother was jailed, I along with my sister-in-law Shaista Parveen had gone to meet him in prison, and he had asked (Shaista) to get Nandi to return the money he had borrowed. Now, Nandiji is not picking our calls, neither are we able to speak to him,” she had said.
Noori further alleged that Nandi’s wife Abhilasha “did not want Shaista to fight the mayor election for the BSP”, the party Shaista had joined in January this year.
ThePrint had reported that Shaista had started campaigning for the election even before the BSP had declared her as a mayor candidate.
As Noori’s comments went viral, Nandi took to social media to term the allegations as “baseless” and “laughable”.
माननीय मुख्यमंत्री योगी आदित्यनाथ जी के नेतृत्व में उत्तर प्रदेश में कानून का शासन है! योगी सरकार अपराधियों और माफियाओं के विरुद्ध जीरो टॉलरेंस की नीति पर काम कर रही है! उमेश पाल हत्याकांड में भी कार्यवाही पूरी सख्ती के साथ इसी दिशा में अग्रसर है! @myogiadityanath @PMOIndia
— Nand Gopal Gupta 'Nandi' 🇮🇳 (@NandiGuptaBJP) March 6, 2023
‘Damage was done’
But, according to BJP insiders, the damage was done.
When the BJP released its list of mayor candidates on 16 April, it denied a ticket to Abhilasha Nandi, who has held the post for the past two terms.
While Nandi kept silent after the announcement of candidates, it was the induction of Shukla into the BJP in the presence of UP’s deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya that made him openly express dismay over the turn of events. Nandi had defeated Shukla from Prayagraj South in last year’s election.
In a written statement issued on 23 April, Nandi said “the sitting MLA (referring to himself) was ignored and neglected” when the decision to induct Shukla was taken by the BJP, and termed the joining of a “rival candidate as a very serious and deep conspiracy (against him)”.
Nandi further said that the decision to induct Shukla) was “against the policy of the BJP and the principle of democratic values”. Without naming anyone, he pointed to “those trying to run the party (BJP) as a private limited” company and said they were harming the party due to their “stubbornness”.
While there were reports that Nandi had gone to Delhi to meet the BJP high command, his aides denied the rumours.
Two baniya leaders in Prayagraj now
Speaking to ThePrint, the BJP leader quoted earlier said that there were two main reasons behind Nandi’s heartburn.
“Shukla was earlier with the BJP but he joined the BSP first and finally the SP ahead of the 2022 polls. He had contested against Nandi from the Allahabad South constituency and bagged the second highest votes. Nandi had defeated Shukla with over 26,000 votes, so his induction into the party naturally didn’t go down well with him,” explained the leader.
“More importantly, the mayor ticket has been given to another leader from the baniya community (Kesarwani). This does not augur well for Nandi’s future as there are two powerful leaders from the community in the Prayagraj BJP now,” he added.
Speaking to ThePrint, Shukla said there was no heartburn over his induction and compared his situation with Nandi’s induction into the BJP seven years ago.
Nandi and his wife had joined the party ahead of the 2017 state assembly elections, triggering protests from members of the local BJP unit.
“Keshari Nath Tripathiji (whom Nandi had defeated in the 2007 UP polls) was a very senior leader. He had served as an MLA from Prayagraj South five times and also served as the governor of West Bengal and Bihar. He had shown a large heart (when Nandi joined the BJP),” Shukla said.
“It (joining the party) is a small thing. My induction will help the party gain more than 72,000 votes that I got (in the assembly elections),” he further said, adding that “events should be looked at politically”.
When contacted by ThePrint, an aide of Nandi said there was no heartburn over recent events and the matter was old now.
“A little difference of opinion was conveyed; the reports of going to Delhi are false. The minister (Nandi) is campaigning for the BJP candidate in Prayagraj,” the aide said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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