Murder accused, MLAs wives, turncoats in BSP list
March 21, 2009: The Indian Express
The Bahujan Samaj Party’s list of Lok Sabha candidates for Uttar Pradesh, announced by party president Mayawati on Friday, included some of the most notorious names of the political world as well as several turncoats who have shifted their loyalty from other parties to the BSP.
Mukhtar Ansari, prime accused in BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai’s murder, has been given the ticket from Varanasi. Dhananjay Singh, a historysheeter facing four murder charges, is the candidate from Jaunpur. The BSP candidate from Unnao, Arun Kumar Shukla ‘Anna’, is a historysheeter and one of the accused in the Guest House case of June 2, 1995 in which Mayawati was attacked by SP workers. D P Yadav, BSP candidate from Badaun, faces murder charge along with cases of extortion and kidnapping. His son, Vikas Yadav, has been convicted in the Nitish Katara murder case. Another BSP candidate, Kadir Rana (Muzaffarnagar), is involved in a murder case. Rakesh Pandey, the Ambedkarnagar candidate, is facing charges of double murder. The party candidate from Shrawasti, Rizwan Zahir, was booked under the Gangster Act.
The turncoats who have found a place in the list include Dhananjay Singh (Jaunpur), Shahid Siddiqui (Bijnor), Shafiqur Rehman (Sambhal), Akhilesh Das (Lucknow), Naresh Agarwal (Farrukhabad), Puttu Awasthi (Kaiserganj), Jagdish Singh Rana (Saharanpur), Kadir Rana (Muzaffarnagar) Rajiv Channa (Moradabad), S P Singh Baghel (Ferozabad), Devendra Singh Yadav (Etah), Kunwar Sarvaraj Singh (Awla), Arun Kumar Shukla (Unnao).
The party has also fielded wives of MLAs. They are Jaiveer Singh’s wife Rajkumari Chauhan (Aligarh), Ramveer Upadhyay’s wife Seema Upadhyay (Fatehpur Sikri), Vijay Pal’s wife Sunita Singh (Shahjahanpur), Jasmeer Ansari’s wife Kaiser Jahan (Sitapur), late Munnawar Hasan’s wife Tabassum Begum (Kairana).
The list also reflects Mayawati’s social engineering: 20 Brahmins and 14 Muslims figure among the candidates. Mayawati has also fielded six Thakurs (up one from five in 2004) and four Baniya candidates.
HER MEN IN ‘ARMS’
? Mukhtar Ansari
? Dhananjay Singh
? Arun Kumar Shukla ‘Anna’
? D. P. Yadav
? Kadir Rana
? Rakesh Pandey
? Rizwan Zahir
? Shahid Siddiqui
? Akhilesh Das
? S. P. Singh Baghel
