New Delhi: Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, contesting the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls from jail, is leading in Rampur by a huge margin of over 64,000 votes.
Meanwhile, Dhananjay Singh, who is absconding from the police, contested on a Janata Dal (United) ticket from the Malhani seat and lost by a margin of over 17,000 votes.
Lucky Yadav of the SP won from Malhani after getting 95,784 votes, according to the Election Commission of India website.
These are just a couple of examples of alleged mafia dons-turned-politicians, who have in part defined the narrative of the Uttar Pradesh assembly election, with parties trading accusations about their opponents associating with gangsters. The Yogi Adityanath government, meanwhile, has waged a high-decibel campaign centred around bulldozing criminals’ property.
BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have targeted the Samajwadi Party (SP) for its alleged association with gangster-politicians.
However, opposition leaders including Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati have hit back by accusing Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of selectively targeting only Muslims, and the SP has mocked Yogi along the same lines by tweeting a video of Dhananjay Singh inaugurating a cricket match.
Other alleged gangsters and their relatives who contested the elections include Mukhtar Ansari’s sport-shooter son, Abbas, in Mau, Azam Khan’s son Abdullah in Suar, and jailed history-sheeter Vijay Mishra in Gyanpur.
Abbas Ansari, who contested on a Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) ticket, is leading from Mau, polling 1,18,521 votes — 38,227 votes more than his nearest rival, BJP’s Ashok Kumar Singh.
Abdullah Azam Khan of the SP won the Suar seat after polling 1,25,797 votes, while his closest competitor, Haidar Ali Khan of Apna Dal (Sonelal), could manage only 64,913 votes, according to the ECI website.
In Gyanpur, Vijay Mishra, who contested on a Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party, came a distant third with 34, 782 votes. The seat was won by Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal’s Vipul Dubey (73,251 votes). Ram Kishore Bind’s of the SP got 66,550 votes.
Ansaris, Azam Khan
The Mau seat wasn’t just important for Mukhtar Ansari — who is an accused in some 40 cases, including the kidnapping and murder of MLA Krishnanand Rai — but also for the BJP’s ‘bulldozing’ campaign. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath claimed to have destroyed or seized Rs 200 crore worth of property belonging to the “Ansari gang”.
The constituency, which Ansari won five times consecutively from 1996 to 2017, is home to sizeable numbers of Muslim, Dalit, and Rajbhar (OBC) voters — reportedly around 1.25 lakh Muslims, 1 lakh Dalits, and 55,000 Rajbhars.
However, although Mukhtar Ansari won the seat as a BSP candidate in 2017 — and although his brother, Afzal, is a BSP MP — neither Mayawati nor SP chief Akhilesh Yadav were willing to give him a ticket this time.
Instead, his son, Abbas, was given a ticket by the Om Prakash Rajbhar-led Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, which is contesting in alliance with the SP — and which has a substantial support base among the Rajbhar community. This was Abbas’s second go at the polls, after he failed to win from Ghosi in 2017.
Meanwhile, the BJP fielded Ashok Kumar Singh, whose brother was allegedly killed by Mukhtar’s gang in 2009, and the BSP candidate was its state president, Bhim Rajbhar.
Mukhtar’s nephew, Suhaib alias Mannu Ansari, contested in neighbouring Mohammadabad on an SP ticket.
Meanwhile, Azam Khan, the Rampur MP, contested Rampur’s assembly seat this time, and was pitted against long-time rival and Congress candidate Kazim Ali Khan, the titular Nawab of Rampur. Kazim Ali Khan could manage to win only 3,529 votes.
Azam Khan, once known as former SP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s ‘Man Friday’, has been jailed for more than two years. The BJP candidate was Akash Saxena, who has filed more than 40 cases against Azam Khan. Saxena got 45,114 votes.
Dhananjay Singh, Vijay Mishra
In Malhani, a bastion of the SP, ex-MP Dhananjay Singh — while absconding from the police — contested on a Janata Dal (United) ticket against the SP’s Lucky Yadav. Yadav won the seat in a 2020 bypoll after the death of his father, seven-time MLA and former minister Parasnath Yadav, who was known to be close to Mulayam Singh Yadav. The BJP candidate was K.P. Singh.
Dhananjay — MLA for Rari from 2002 to 2009 and MP for Jaunpur from 2009 to 2014 — contested the 2017 election in Malhani on a Nishad Party ticket against Parasnath and was defeated.
Meanwhile, MLA Vijay Mishra, a history-sheeter with more than 70 cases pending against him, contested his seat of Gyanpur in Bhadohi district, from Agra jail. He had a ticket from the regional Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party.
He was elected to the assembly as an SP candidate in 2002 and 2007 — during the BSP wave. During a 2009 bypoll, he was in the news when the police tried to apprehend him but Mulayam spirited him away in a helicopter.
He won the 2012 election from jail, but in 2017, Akhilesh did not give him a ticket. Nevertheless, he won again in Gyanpur on a Nishad Party ticket. However, his relationship with the Yogi Adityanath government has soured. His house has been bulldozed and his property confiscated.
(Edited by Rohan Manoj)
Also read: In UP’s Mau, gangster Mukhtar Ansari’s sport-shooter son is using ‘clean’ image to gun for votes