All parties guilty
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LUCKNOW: Every party in UP has contributed towards criminalizing the state politics. This is directly responsible for the poor state of law and order in the state. If Congress introduced thecriminals in politics and started the trend of giving tickets to mafia and candidates with criminal records, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) andSamajwadi Party (SP) made mafia-turned-politicians ministers during their rule. The same continues in Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) regime.
Mayawati fought and won the 2007 assembly elections on law and order issue. But in the same elections she fielded 131 candidates with criminal cases, of which 63 won. They included 33 MLAs with two or more cases, including murder, rape, dacoity, rioting, kidnapping etc. The list included gangsters like Sushil Kumar Singh with over 25 cases and Jitendra Singh with 12 cases.
Mayawati fought and won the 2007 assembly elections on law and order issue. But in the same elections she fielded 131 candidates with criminal cases, of which 63 won. They included 33 MLAs with two or more cases, including murder, rape, dacoity, rioting, kidnapping etc. The list included gangsters like Sushil Kumar Singh with over 25 cases and Jitendra Singh with 12 cases.
After 2007 elections, over two dozen BSP leaders including ministers, MLAs and a MP have been booked by police on different charges, of which two have been convicted -- Shekhar Tiwari for killing Public Works Department engineer MK Gupta when latter refused to pay extortion money and Anandsen Yadav for sexually exploiting a girl and killing her when threatened to expose him. Before the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, BSP inducted few more mafia-turned-politicians -- DP Yadav, Dhananjay Singh, Mukhtar Ansari and Aruna Shankar Shukla among others. Ansari and Shukla were later expelled as they could not perform as per the party's expectations.
It's not the BSP alone as all the political parties induct criminals and mafia elements claiming that they have 'undergone change of heart'. It was Congress which first used criminals and musclemen to win elections. But when latter demanded their pound of flesh, Congress introduced candidates with criminal record such as Hari Shankar Tiwari, Amarmani Tripathi and Akhilesh Singh into politics and gave them tickets. Tiwari won as Congress candidate in 1982. Tripathi was Tiwari's henchman at one point of time and started his career in politics with Communist party and later joined Congress.
Interestingly, he was also responsible for a split in the Congress in 1996 to save the BJP government led by Kalyan Singh and later joined BSP. However, Congress did not take any lesson. In 2007 assembly elections, the party fielded around 100 candidates with criminal record. Similarly, in 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the party put up 19 candidates with tainted past. including eight facing serious charges of murder, attempt to murder among others.
SP is no different. Besides mafia, it also gave tickets to dacoits like Phoolan Devi in elections. SP MLAs and leaders with criminal antecedents played a vital role in 1995 state guest house case in which Mayawati was attacked and several MLAs of her party were abducted to save the Mulayam Singh Yadav government.
The incident happened when Maya withdrew support to SP government in the state. This is not all. From August 2003 to May 2007, Mulayam government had support of 81 MLAs having criminal records. Over two dozen ministers in the government were tainted including Raghuraj Pratap Singh and Hari Shankar Tiwari.
In Samajwadi Party rule, criminals lost fear of the khaki. Over a dozen cases of assault on policemen by SP leaders were reported in three years. Shailendra Singh, a police officer, was forced to resign when he took action against mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari. One-third SP candidates in 2007 assembly polls and 40 in 2009 Lok Sabha polls had criminal cases.
Besides promoting communal politics, BJP also had no reservations in inducting criminals. In fact, it was first to make tainted MLAs as ministers. Kalyan Singh in 1996-97 gave ministerial berths to 12 MLAs with criminal record and had support of 60-odd MLAs with criminal past. The tainted MLAs played a major role in splitting BSP and help Singh form the government. Later, when BJP came to power again in 2000 with Rajnath Singh as chief minister, the party has support of around 70 MLAs with criminal records, of which 18 were made ministers. In 2007 assembly polls, 28% BJP candidates had criminal cases. Similarly, in 2009 Lok Sabha elections, BJP had put up 24 candidates with criminal record.
Interestingly, mafia like Amarmani Tripathi and Mukhtar Ansari found place as ministers in every government from 1997-2007 be it BSP, BJP or SP. In 2006, the total number of MLAs with a tainted past in UP assembly was 206, a majority in the house of 403.
However, there is a ray of hope as well. Number of MLAs with criminal records in UP have come down to 160 in 2007 assembly elections. And, in 2009 Lok Sabha elections only three mafia-turned-politicians -- Dhananjay Singh (BSP), Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh (SP) and Ramakant Yadav (BJP) -- could win the elections. However, of total 80 MPs elected from UP, nearly one-third had two or more criminal/corruption cases against them.
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