With Gangsters Back, Samajwadi Party Is All Set For UP Elections 

Just four days after he said that the merger of mafia don Mukhtar Ansari’s Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) with the Samajwadi Party (SP) was final, party president Shivpal Yadav told party workers in Mainpuri on Monday (10 October) that goondas were still there in the party and they would be dealt with firmly. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has accepted the merger without a murmur of protest.

At this point, just take a look at the SP’s rogues’ gallery: Mukhtar Ansari, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya, Ateeq Ahmed (over 100 cases), Arun Shankar Shukla alias Anna Maharaj, Madan Bhaiya, Durga Prasad Yadav (Azamgarh), Uma Kant Yadav, the list is long.

Despite losing the 2007 elections because of complete lawlessness under Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government, SP continues to have a symbiotic relationship with criminals of all shades.

Akhilesh Yadav may have hogged headlines for denying a ticket to DP Yadav of western Uttar Pradesh and protesting against QED’s merger with SP a few months ago, but among the 17 cabinet minister and 30 ministers of state in his council of ministers in 2012, there were 12 with criminal records.

Heading the list, ironically, was Shivpal Yadav, who now talks of ridding his party of goondas. Shivpal has 12 cases of attempt to murder, dacoity and loot registered against him. Others include Raja Bhaiyya, Raja Ram Pandey, and Durga Prasad Yadav, (who was alleged to have shot four persons inside a hospital in Azamgarh and has 14 criminal cases against him), Mehboob Ali, Om Prakash Singh and Manoj Kumar Paras.

Akhilesh Yadav, who is now projecting a clean image, had defended the induction of those with criminal antecedents in his council of ministers. “The cases against them are politically motivated. Our rival parties have implicated them in false cases,” he reportedly told the media after the swearing in ceremony.

Although Congress had its share of notorious criminals - Akhilesh Singh (Rae Bareilly) and Hari Shankar Tiwari (Gorakhpur) - when the party was in power in UP, the SP is said to have realised the importance of criminals and set a dangerous trend in 1995 when its goons allegedly assaulted Mayawati at the State Guest House on Lucknow’s Mirabai Marg.

It is important to recall that dark chapter in the state’s politics before which today’s sworn enemies - the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - were political allies.

The last time SP and the BSP fought an election together was in 1993. The alliance won, and a government headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav was formed.

In 1995 Mayawati decided to pull support. SP goons were allegedly let loose on Mayawati who was nearly mauled by a frenzied, abusive mob. As the incident took place at the State Guest House it became infamous as the State Guest House case. It is said that the attack left Mayawati badly shaken and she has not forgiven Mulayam for allegedly orchestrating the assault.

In a case filed by the BSP in Lucknow, Mulayam Singh, Shivpal Singh Yadav, Beni Prasad Verma, Azam Khan, Masood Ahmed and other leaders of the party were named accused. The Allahabad High Court had dismissed the charges against the SP leaders under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

In 2009 the then Speaker of UP Assembly Barkhu Ram Verma challenged the order in the Supreme Court. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan admitted the petition.

The case was last heard in September 2016.

Whatever Shivpal might now say, for the party the winnability criterion was far more important than fussing over the background of a candidate or discussing development.

In this context, the merger of QED, therefore, is in keeping with the SP’s culture, and Akhilesh Yadav’s initial protestations were more for public consumption than genuine. The party is looking at the influence the don would wield on a sizeable number of seats in Mau, Ghazipur and Chandauli. The party doesn’t look beyond that. Nor does it mind the stigma of being called a party of goons.