CRIMINAL-POLITICIAN NEXUS INGRAINED IN UP’S POLITY

Mayawati has now distanced herself from Ansari

Lucknow: The nexus of crime and politics has a deep rooted history in UP. Recently, the BSP supremo’s direction to the party officials to take an affidavit of no-criminal background from the ticket seekers has sparked a debate about the criminalization of politics.

After the Yogi govt tightened the noose, Mayawati may have also distanced herself from the mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari.

But in the past the BSP has had a deep relationship with the Ansari family. Mukhtar Ansari, lodged in Banda jail, became BSP MLA from Mau while his brother Afzal Ansari is BSP MP from Ghazipur parliamentary seat.

According to political analyst Pawan Upadhyay , “Even though the BSP chief is seemingly shunning of tainted candidates, her party has regularly fielded candidates with tainted background”. The Association of Democratic Reforms report ratifies this view point.

As in the 2017 assembly elections, Most of the candidates with a tainted image were fielded by the BSP. 150 of its 400 candidates had criminal antecedents. Of these, 123 had serious criminal cases registered against them.

Even in 2007, when the BSP came to power with a majority, it had fielded 131 candidates with criminal records, out of which 63 won and became MLAs. Many of whom were accused in serious cases like murder, rape, dacoity, rioting and kidnapping.

However, in the state with the largest population of the country, no political party is untouched by the leaders of the tainted image. out of 143 MLAs of the current 17th legislative Assembly, against whom cases were registered, 105 MLAs were booked under serious cases like murders, molestation and misappropriation.

These included 114 MLAs of BJP, 14 of SP, five of BSP and one from Cong. Whereas, out of 80 MPs who won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 44 had criminal cases registered against them, including 35 from BJP, 5 from BSP and 2 from SP.