Ex-BSP MP And Muzaffarnagar Riots Accused Kadir Rana Back In SP, Akhilesh Welcomes The 'Senior Leader'

Former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Kadir Rana, an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, with his supporters joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Sunday ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls due next year.

Rana has numerous criminal cases registered against him under various charges. He is currently facing trials for making inflammatory hate speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots.

A special court recently announced that it is about to frame charges against 10 politicians, including Kadir Rana and his brother Noor Saleem Rana for the same.

Former UP CM and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav welcomed Kadir Rana into the party at a function held at the state office of the SP in Lucknow, and exclaimed that Rana was a “senior leader” who is now back with the party.

Donning different party hats

Kadir Rana, now an SP leader, has been jumping boats throughout his political career. Before this, he had fought the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2009 on a BSP ticket from the Muzaffarnagar seat.

In the 2014 election, Rana suffered a major setback against Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, as he lost to him by a margin of 4,01,150 votes.

While Balyan bagged 6,53,391 votes, Rana only got 2,52,241 votes.

It was in 2009 that Rana, in a closely fought election, managed to win the seat for the Bahujan Samaj Party. While Rana got 2,75,318 votes, his closest rival Rashtriya Lok Dal's Anuradha Chaudhary stood second with 2,54,720 votes.

During his tenure as an MP, he has also served as a member in various parliamentary committees related to urban development, agriculture, and consumer affairs.

Rana, in the 2007 UP assembly elections, was elected MLA from the Moorna constituency of Muzaffarnagar district on a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) ticket. It was prior to this election that he was a member of the Samajwadi Party.

He was also a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) in Uttar Pradesh from 1997 to 2004.

Influential political family, owns assets worth crores

Rana hails from Sujdu village of Muzaffarnagar district where his family exercises massive political influence and has connections across party lines. In the 2014 elections, Rana declared his assets worth Rs 13,52,02,262 and liabilities amounting to Rs 2,42,05,110.

While Rana’s wife was BSP’s MLA candidate from the Budhana seat in the 2017 elections, his brother Noor Saleem Rana, also an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, is the current BSP MLA from the Charthawal seat.

His nephew Shahnawaz Rana, with numerous criminal cases against his name, has been an MLA from Bijnor, and was RLD’s MLA candidate in the 2017 UP assembly polls from the Khatauli assembly seat.

Shahnawaz’s wife has also been a Zilla Panchayat Member.

Serious criminal offences: Charges of murder, rioting, robbery etc.

Rana is a known trouble-maker and is an accused in numerous criminal cases with charges under various serious sections of the IPC. He has charges related to voluntarily causing hurt to public servant, robbery, attempt to murder, intentional use of explosives to destroy houses, murder, rioting, rioting armed with deadly weapons, endangering life of others, provocation with intent to cause rioting etc.

Rana is one of the prime accused in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. He was booked for allegedly violating prohibitory orders and inciting communal tensions by making inflammatory speeches in Khalapur locality of Muzaffarnagar city.

The communal violence that broke out in Muzaffarnagar and adjoining towns in September 2013 claimed over 40 lives and rendered above 50,000 people homeless.

It is also noteworthy that when Kadir Rana was inducted into the BSP in 2009, the BSP supremo and then chief minister Mayawati, ordered the withdrawal of cases against both Kadir Rana and his nephew Shahnawaz Rana, who were accused for arson and violence during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

Interestingly, Mayawati who had recently cut Mukhtar Ansari’s ticket citing his criminal background, then called the withdrawal of the cases against Rana to be in “public interest”.