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UP ex-minister Prajapati jailed for rape, but wife & bahu keep influence intact. Here’s why

After Gayatri Prajapati's wife won assembly polls, their daughter-in-law Shilpa will contest MLC polls on SP ticket. Rivals have criticised move, but SP says his relatives don't face criminal cases.

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Lucknow: Locked up in a Lucknow prison serving life term in a 2017 rape case, former state minister Gayatri Prajapati continues to remain a political force in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, with the Samajwadi Party (SP) leadership reposing its faith in two members of his family.

Akhilesh Yadav’s SP declared Sunday that Gayatri’s daughter-in-law Shilpa Prajapati will contest the upcoming legislative council elections from the Sultanpur-Amethi seat. Shilpa is married to Anil Prajapati, the eldest of Gayatri’s four children.

The party had pitted Gayatri’s wife Maharaji Prajapati from the Amethi assembly seat in January. She won with over 46 per cent of the votes.

Both announcements triggered reactions from rival parties, including the ruling BJP, which accused the SP of siding with those associated with “rape accused and mafia”.

While some members of the SP claimed that they had no alternative backward face in the Amethi area, and that there was ample “sympathy” for the tainted minister in the region, apart from him being affluent, the party has defended the decisions, stating that there are no charges against Maharaji or Shilpa. 

The MLC elections, to be held on 35 seats, are slated for 9 April, and counting is scheduled for 12 April.


Also Read: Will Keshav Maurya keep deputy CM chair after losing his seat? Likely after BJP retains Dhami


Ex-minister’s chequered past

Soon after the SP announced the candidature of Maharaji Prajapati from Amethi in January, news reports about her husband’s controversial past started doing the rounds.

Gayatri Prajapati became mining minister in former CM Akhilesh Yadav’s government (2012-2017) in 2013. He later also held the transport portfolio. 

He is from the Prajapati community, which used to be part of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category till June 2019, when it was included in the list of Scheduled Castes by the Yogi Adityanath government.

In 2014 and 2015, Prajapati was accused of corruption by various persons including former IPS officer Amitabh Thakur and his wife Nutan, an activist. The allegations ranged from disproportionate assets to sheltering illegal mining in the state.

While other complainants withdrew their complaints, Nutan Thakur moved the Lokayukta for the second time in 2015, alleging that Prajapati was helming a mining syndicate, and also gave details of companies allegedly floated by him after getting ministership.

Although the Lokayukta gave him a clean chit in the disproportionate assets case, the Allahabad High Court ordered a CBI inquiry into the alleged syndicate.

Nutan also submitted details of properties that Prajapati allegedly bought in the names of his driver and domestic help. Later, the Income Tax department confirmed that his driver had acquired assets worth Rs 77 lakh in two years.

Prajapati was dropped from the government on 12 September 2016, in light of the pending inquiries against him, only to be reinstated two weeks later.

In March 2017, he, along with others, was arrested in a rape case after an FIR was registered against him on the direction of the Supreme Court. The complaint was filed by a 35-year-old woman, who alleged that he and his associates gang-raped her during a meeting and also took photos. She further alleged that Gayatri had attempted to rape her daughter as well.

After the Supreme Court ordered that an FIR be lodged against him and six others for the alleged gangrape and attempt to rape against the woman’s minor daughter, Prajapati went on the run. A month later, the SP asked him to resign. Two FIRs were lodged against him by the CBI, and the ED also conducted raids in connection with the mining and disproportionate assets cases in 2019.

In November last year, a special court sentenced him and two others to life imprisonment in the rape case. 

Talking to ThePrint, Nutan Thakur said she submitted a complaint against Prajapati to the Lokayukta in 2015, but her complaint was quashed on the grounds that it was “frivolous”.

“Soon after, a false rape case was filed against my husband and I was made a co-accused. The proceedings of that case are still going on,” she said.

Tears & call for ‘justice’

Maharaji Prajapati contested the 2022 assembly polls from Amethi seat and won. Her husband Gayatri had won from this seat in 2012, and came a close second in the 2017 assembly elections.

After casting her vote in Amethi, Maharaji had told mediapersons that her husband was convicted because “the BJP feared he would get a ticket to contest and defeat them”. 

Local residents said Maharaji and her daughters would break into tears as they went door-to-door seeking votes. At times, Shilpa too sought votes for her mother-in-law, they added.  

Aap hume nyay dijiye, janta hume nyay degi, sarkar ne hume nyay nahi diya hai (you give us justice, the public will give us justice… the government has not given us justice),” one of Maharaji’s daughters told the public while canvassing in Amethi.

‘Money, power centre & face among backwards, SC community’

Speaking to ThePrint, SP insiders said that, in the Amethi area, they don’t have another face from the backward sections. There is a lot of sympathy for the former minister in the area, they added, also noting that the family is financially strong.

Maharaji’s election affidavit stated that she had her husband together have assets worth over Rs 9 crore.

“Gayatri has money power and there is no other backward leader here. The members of the Amethi royal family (Sanjay Sinh, Garima Sinh and Ameeta Sinh) have either been with the Congress or the BJP. Aditi Singh (Rae Bareli MLA and daughter of the late Akhilesh Singh) is with the BJP already,” said a local SP leader who did not wish to be named. “So, any upper caste leader cannot stand the contest here. The candidature of Gayatri’s wife and daughter-in-law sends many messages together.”

“Apart from the sympathy factor, the support from the SC community and the fact that women are seeking votes also works for the Prajapati family,” he added. Amethi has an SC population estimated at over 84,000.

BJP state spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said that despite losing the UP election, the SP was continuing to side with those associated with “mafia, rape accused, dangai (rioters) and the party will have to pay the price”.

Asked why Shilpa was chosen as candidate, SP chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told ThePrint: “She is no criminal. There is no case against her. The case of Gayatri Prajapati is different but none of his family members has any case lodged against them.”

(Edited by Gitanjali Das)


Also Read: Congress left empty-handed in ‘home’ constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli


 

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