UP Elections 2017: Like father, like son? Jailed BSP candidate Mukhtar Ansari hopes son swings Muslim support towards Mayawati

Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari is an enigmatic figure in Uttar Pradesh. But after Delhi High Court had denied custody parole to the strongman for canvassing in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2017, Ansari’s son has taken up the responsibility to make sure that BSP garners favourable mandate. “Apart from looking to win the seats being contested by Mukhtar, his 25-year-old son Abbas Ansari and MLA brother, are also under pressure to try and swing Muslim support in favour of the BSP in about a dozen seats where the family enjoys pockets of influence,” The Indian Express report says.

Ansari, an MLA who recently joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is contesting from Mau Assembly seat, a constituency he has won four times and which has elected only Muslims since 1969. But for his son Abbas, it appears to be an uphill battle in Ghosi, which hasn’t elected a Muslim since 1977. Mukhtar’s eldest brother Sibgatullah is contesting in Mohammadabad — the family’s ancestral home — where he is the two-time sitting MLA and which was represented earlier by another brother, Afzal. Ansari has over 40 criminal cases against him, including that of murder and kidnapping.

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The son Abbas is pitted against sitting SP MLA Sudhakar Singh and the BJP’s Fagu Chauhan, a three-time former MLA who had won on a BSP or a BJP ticket. Ghosi’s four lakh-odd voters include about 75,000 Muslims and 70,000 Dalits, but the rest make for a complex, often decisive caste calculus — 60,000 voters of the backward Rajbhar caste, 45,000 of the backward Chauhan caste, and over 70,000 of the upper castes and OBCs such as Yadav and Mallah, whose number is smaller. With the BJP hoping for a consolidation of the Hindu vote, Abbas’s hopes lie in a division of the upper caste and OBC votes between the SP and BJP, BSP sources say. The SP candidate is a Kshatriya and the BJP candidate is of the OBC Lonia caste.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing a rally in Mau Monday, said jails in UP are “like palaces for Bahubalis who execute heinous crimes and illegal activities from there”. On Tuesday, Mayawati was in Mau and urged BSP supporters to get Mukhtar victory by a record margin. On Wednesday, Akhilesh campaigned against Mukhtar in Mau.

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Last year, without mincing words, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had expressed his resentment over the merger with gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansaris party saying he will not be welcome in Samajwadi Party “Mukhtar Ansari will not be welcome in the party. We dont want such people in the party,” Yadav said during a television show adding he didnt take the decision regarding the merger of Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) with Samajwadi Party.

Notably, Ansari was given custody parole till March 4, enabling him to campaign in the election. The high court on February 17 had stayed its operation after the poll panel moved a plea seeking cancellation of his parole on the ground that he may influence witnesses in the 2005 murder case of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai, in which he is facing trial. Later the State of Uttar Pradesh, the prosecuting agency and the complainant in the BJP MLA’s case also moved the high court opposing Ansari’s release from jail in Lucknow. However, their contention was opposed by Ansari’s counsel, who had said that Election Commission of India’s claims are baseless and it is not the ground to restrict his movement in his constituency from where he is contesting, as none of the witnesses are from there.

Senior advocates Salman Khurshid and Sudhir Nandrajog, appearing for the leader had said that only in an extraordinary situation, the EC can come to court. “Participation of candidates in free and fair election is also a basic structure of the Constitution,” the counsel had submitted.

They had contended that Ansari has been elected from Mau constituency for a record four times and he is willing to give an undertaking to the court that he will not violate its order. This was strongly opposed by the poll panel, which was represented by senior advocate Dayan Krishnan, who had said that the release of the accused would have a direct impact on conduct of free and fair election in Mau constituency.

The EC had further submitted that the judgement of this court is going to have far reaching consequences on the poll panel’s power.

“We have material to oppose the parole,” Krishnan had argued. The trial court had on February 16 granted him custody parole. The accused, while seeking the relief, had told the trial court that he has been in judicial custody since December 2005 and was granted parole to contest polls earlier too.

(With agency inputs)