Convicted in riots case: BJP MLA Vikram Saini disqualified from UP Assembly

Saini’s disqualification comes days after Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Jayant Chaudhary wrote a letter to Speaker Satish Mahana asking why the seat of BJP MLA Vikram Saini, who was convicted in a Muzaffarnagar riots case, had not yet been declared vacant when action was immediately taken in case of SP MLA Azam Khan whose seat Rampur Sadar was declared vacant.

The RLD chief pointed out that while senior SP leader Azam Khan, who was convicted in a three-year-old hate speech case and sentenced to three years of imprisonment, lost his Assembly membership a day after the sentencing, no such action was taken against Saini. “This raises a question on your intention… if it is possible to interpret the law differently for MLAs of the ruling and Opposition parties,” the RLD chief wrote to the Speaker. Following the letter, Mahana said that he had sought information from the State Election Commission and Muzaffarnagar District Magistrate.

Section 8 (3) of The Representation of the People Act, 1951 states: “A person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years… shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his release.”

However, BJP MLA Saini had claimed that his case was “not fit for disqualification” as he has been sentenced to two years of imprisonment. “The seat is not announced vacant for a jail term of two years,” If I was convicted for three years, I would have lost my seat too… I have not been sentenced for a day more than two years,” Saini had said.