Lucknow: Of all the reasons to enter politics, hers was the strangest: Murder. And it was BSP leader Mayawati who encouraged Pooja Pal to contest after her MLA husband Raju Pal was allegedly killed by gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed just nine days after their wedding.
From a very poor, OBC family in Katghar area of Prayagraj district, Pooja had never imagined she would enter politics. Daughter of a puncture repair shop owner, she did odd jobs while studying and finally managed to graduate from Allahabad University. She even worked as a sweeper in offices and in a hospital to make ends meet.
It was while working at the hospital that she met Raju Pal, then a local businessman in Prayagraj West. The two got married, but tragedy struck when Raju was murdered just nine days later.
After that, Pooja’s life changed completely. On Mayawati’s encouragement, she contested and won an assembly poll, got expelled from the BSP, then became an SP MLA, and has now been expelled again.
Nearly two decades after first making headlines, Pooja Pal is back in the spotlight, this time over her expulsion from the Samajwadi Party after she praised Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the legislative assembly.
On 14 August, the Samajwadi Party expelled its MLA from the Chail constituency in Kaushambi district, Pooja Pal, citing “anti-party activities”.The action came just hours after Pooja Pal publicly praised Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his “zero-tolerance policy” against crime. In its expulsion letter, the party specifically mentioned her involvement in activities against party interests.
According to Samajwadi Party functionaries, in February 2024, Pal was among seven SP MLAs who voted for BJP candidate Sanjay Seth in the Rajya Sabha polls, going against the party line. Since then, Pal was involved in “anti-party activities”. She even campaigned for the BJP candidate during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, but the party gave her another chance. However, after noticing no improvement, the party has now decided to take action.
While talking to ThePrint after the expulsion, Pal said, “What wrong did I do? I only praised the Chief Minister’s law-and-order work and that’s a fact. I got justice because of Yogi-ji. Atiq and his family are my husband’s murderers. I was never aligned with Mulayam Singh Yadav, but I believed Akhilesh was a visionary leader, which is why I joined the Samajwadi Party in 2022. But after Atiq’s murder, Samajwadi Party leaders were raising questions. This hurt me.”
“I have not decided what I will do now but i will be with those who stood by me in my difficult times,” she added.
Praised Yogi’s law & order
Pooja Pal, whose husband, BSP MLA Raju Pal, was murdered in 2005 allegedly by associates of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed, expressed deep gratitude to CM Yogi in the UP assembly during her speech. She credited his policies for improvement in law and order in the state and for delivering justice in her husband’s case.
“Everyone knows who murdered my husband. I want to thank the Chief Minister for bringing me justice when no one else did. His zero-tolerance policy led to the elimination of criminals like Atiq Ahmed. Today, the entire state looks at the CM with trust,” she said. Praising Yogi further, she remarked, “Mere pati ke hatyare Atiq Ahmed ko Mukhya Mantri ne mitti mein milaane ka kaam kiya” (“The chief minister decimated my husband’s killer, Atiq Ahmed”). She recalled that when she had despaired in her fight for justice, CM Yogi’s actions had given her hope.
How her husband’s murder brought her into politics
After her husband’s killing, Mayawati gave Pooja a BSP ticket to contest the by-polls necessitated by her husband’s death. But Pooja lost. However, in the 2007 assembly polls, she defeated Ashraf, Atiq’s brother. Mayawati herself campaigned for her in Prayagraj West constitutency. She was in Mayawati’s good books until 2018, when, after losing to the BJP’s Siddharth Nath Singh in 2017, she went to meet Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya. After that, Mayawati expelled her.
Pooja then joined the Samajwadi Party in 2019, just before the Lok Sabha polls.
As per sources close to Pal, she got married again to Unnao-based Brajesh Verma before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The Samajwadi Party fielded Pal from Unnao, but she withdrew as her documents were not complete. In 2022, SP again given her a ticket and she won the 2022 Assembly election from Chail in Kaushambi.
In February 2023, Umesh Pal, a key witness in Raju Pal’s murder case, was killed in Prayagraj’s Sulem Saray area. Atiq and Ashraf, the prime accused, were later arrested but shot dead on April 15, 2023, by assailants posing as journalists during a visit to the hospital.
The killings proved to be a turning point for Pooja Pal. She voted against the party line in the 2024 Rajya Sabha polls, triggering a rift with the Samajwadi Party.
In June this year, nearly 16 months after eight Samajwadi Party MLAs, including Pooja Pal, rebelled during the Rajya Sabha elections, the party expelled three of them: Abhay Singh (Gosaiganj), Rakesh Pratap Singh (Gauriganj), and Manoj Pandey (Unchahar) but took no action against Pooja Pal at the time. It was said that Pal was part of the SP’s ‘PDA’ (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) outreach, and the party wanted to give her another chance. Now, Pal is questioning where the ‘PDA narrative’ has gone in light of the action against her.
As per sources in BJP, Pal is in touch with the UP BJP leadership and is likely to join the ruling party before the next assembly polls.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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