Maya red-faced over Tiwari’s conviction

In the 2007 Assembly elections,the Mayawati-led BSP came to power on the plank of restoring law and order and ending the “jungle raj” of the Samajwadi party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav. The BSP MLA from Auriyya,along with his supporters,had allegedly lynched the PWD engineer on December 25,2008,for refusing to fork out money for the ‘Aarthik Sahayog Diwas’ celebrated on Mayawati’s birthday on January 15. After the murder,Mayawati stopped the celebrations.

Though the BSP regime had shown uncanny alacrity in filing the chargesheet against Shekhar Tiwari,the party never hid its attempts to shield the MLA and his wife. Though the MLA was suspended from the party soon after his arrest in 2009,he and his wife have not been expelled even after their conviction. In fact,Vibha is still holding a public office,chairperson of the Dibiyapur Nagar Panchayat. She had surrendered before a court in Auriyya on March 17,2009,and remained in jail for nearly five months. After her arrest,the Additional District Magistrate of Auriyya,Rakesh Kumar,was made the administrator of the Dibyapur Nagar Panchayat. She was reinstated as chairperson after her release on bail.

“It is unethical for the party to retain convicted leaders. They should have been expelled from the party in 2009 itself,’’ said Sudhindra Bhadouria,BSP leader of Etwah. Far from expressing any regrets,Mayawati,on her birthday in 2009,had claimed that there was a conspiracy to malign the party. “I wish to inform the opposition parties that due to their malicious campaign to malign me and my government over the murder of the PWD engineer,the donations made by the Dalit samaj and the party cadres have doubled as compared to the previous year,” she said.

Mayawati had even allegedly tried to influence the line of investigation,saying,“The police will probe whether Shekhar Tiwari might have been made to drink excess alcohol to commit the crime.”

Alleging that it could be the conspiracy hatched by the Samajwadi party,Mayawati had said the station officer of the Dibiyapur police station could be its agent. Station Officer Hoshiyar Singh,sentenced to life imprisonment by the session court,was posted at the same police station when the SP was in power as well. Jittery over the opposition’s claim that her government unleashed an extortion drive ahead of her birthday,she had said during a press conference in 2009: “Agar aap ke paas koi saboot hai to pesh kijiye (If you have any evidence of the involvement of the MLA in the killing of the engineer then produce it).”

Shekhar Tewari,an Allahabad University graduate,was elected as chairman of the Dibiyapur Nagar Panchayat in 1997 as a BSP candidate. He was elected to the UP Assembly for the first time in May 2007.

Ajay Tewari,his elder brother,expressed dissatisfaction with the court verdict. “The judgment is beyond my comprehension. We will challenge it in the high court,” he said.