Arvind Kejriwal in prison: For many politicians before him, jail has been no bar

While how Kejriwal’s arrest will impact the party’s chances in the upcoming polls is something time will tell, here are a few examples of leaders who have won polls while in jail and of others whose incarceration had an impact on the performance of their parties.

Lalu Prasad

In 1997, the CBI chargesheeted then Bihar CM Lalu Prasad in the fodder scam case. Facing a revolt within the Janata Dal over the allegations, Lalu floated the Rashtriya Janata Dal and resigned as CM, leaving the reins of the government to his wife Rabri Devi. He was then arrested by the CBI and spent 135 days in jail.

In the 1998 Lok Sabha elections which followed months after his imprisonment, Lalu won as an MP from Madhepura. The same year, he was again jailed in connection with the same case, and lost in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls from Madhepura seat.

But a year later, in the 2000 Assembly polls held in a then undivided Bihar, the RJD won 124 of the 293 seats and formed the government. Rabri remained the CM, with an incarcerated Lalu’s generous help.

J Jayalalithaa

In December 1997, after the AIADMK had lost power in Tamil Nadu, party chief and former CM J Jayalalithaa was arrested by police in connection with a case of alleged irregularities in the purchase of colour TVs for village panchayats. Months after her arrest, the AIADMK won 18 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls.

In the next year’s Lok Sabha polls, the party was reduced to 10 seats, but stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu in the 2001 Assembly elections, winning 132 of the 234 seats.

Jayalalithaa though was forced to step down after the Supreme Court flagged her conviction in the TANSI land deal case. She only returned to the CM’s post in 2002 after the Madras High Court acquitted her in the case.

In September 2014, while she was the CM, she was convicted in a disproportionate assets case. Two years later, the AIADMK won 136 Assembly seats and came to power in the state.

M Karunanidhi

DMK stalwart and former Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi was arrested in June 2001 in an alleged case of corruption, weeks after the AIADMK swept to power in the state. The arrest of the former CM along with two Union ministers, Murasoli Maran and T R Baalu, with Tamil Nadu police dragging them out of their houses precipitated into a crisis, with the Centre threatening to invoke Article 355.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls that followed, the DMK improved its tally from 12 seats in 1999 to 16. In the 2006 Assembly polls, it formed a minority government in the state, after winning 96 seats out of 234.

A Raja and Kanimozhi

Former Union minister A Raja and Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi were arrested by the CBI in the 2G spectrum allocation case in February and May 2011 respectively. While Raja spent more than a year in jail, Kanimozhi was imprisoned for six months.

Following their arrest, the DMK drew a blank in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In the 2016 Assembly polls, it won only 89 seats, but it was a vast improvement from the 23 it won in 2011.

In 2017, the duo were acquitted, following which the DMK-led alliance won 38 of the 39 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Om Prakash Chautala

Five-time Haryana CM Om Prakash Chautala has been behind bars since January 2013, after he was convicted in a teachers’ recruitment case followed by a disproportionate assets case. His party, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), has seen a consistent slide in his absence.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the party won two of the 10 seats in Haryana. In the Assembly elections held that year, the party won only 19 of the 90 seats on offer. In 2019, the party failed to open its account in the Lok Sabha polls while it was reduced to just one seat in the Assembly polls.

B S Yediyurappa

Then Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappa was forced to resign in July 2011 after the state Lokayukta indicted him for illegally profiteering from land deals in Bangalore and Shimoga, and also in connection with the alleged illegal iron ore export scam in Bellary, Tumkur and Chitradurga districts.

In October that year, he surrendered before a Lokayukta court and was arrested. He then quit the BJP and floated the Karnataka Janata Paksha. In the 2013 Assembly elections, while he won from Shikaripur, the BJP suffered a drubbing and was reduced to just 40 seats in the 224-member House. In January 2014, he merged his party with the BJP and won the Shimoga Lok Sabha polls, even as the BJP won 17 seats in the state.

George Fernandes

Socialist leader George Fernandes was arrested by the Indira Gandhi government on June 10, 1976, in Kolkata following the declaration of Emergency. He was arrested on charges of smuggling dynamite to blow up government establishments in protest against the imposition of Emergency, in what came to be known as the Baroda dynamite case.

In the post-Emergency 1977 elections, he contested from Muzaffarpur in Bihar while still behind bars, and defeated the Congress candidate by around 3 lakh votes.

Mukhtar Ansari

Arrested under the Gangsters’ Act, don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari contested the Mau Assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh on a BSP ticket while he was in prison in 1996 and won. Since then, an accused in many crimes, including the 2005 murder of BJP legislator Krishnanand Rai, Ansari has been in and out of jail but continued his election wins, as have his family members.

In 2002 and 2007, he re-won from Mau again as an Independent. In 2010, he formed the Qaumi Ekta Dal and won again from the seat in the 2012 Assembly polls. In 2017, he merged his party with the BSP and won again later that year while he was in jail.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, his brother Afzal Ansari defeated the BJP’s Manoj Sinha from the Ghazipur seat. In the 2022 Assembly elections, Mukhtar passed on the baton to his son Abbas, who won the Mau seat, while Suhaib Anasri, Mukhtar’s nephew, won the Mohammadabad seat on a Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket.

Kalpanath Rai

The former Union minister was put behind bars in 1996 in a TADA case for allegedly harbouring members of gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s gang. He contested the 1996 Lok Sabha polls from behind bars and won the Ghosi constituency by defeating Mukhtar Ansari. He was eventually convicted and sentenced in the case and died of a cardiac arrest in 1999.

Azam Khan

Veteran SP leader and nine-time Rampur MLA Azam Khan was arrested in February 2020 and remained in jail for 27 months in connection with multiple cases ranging from alleged land grabbing to forging his son’s birth certificate. He vacated the Rampur Lok Sabha seat he held to contest the 2022 UP Assembly elections, and won the Rampur Assembly seat by 55,000 votes while still in jail. Later, following his conviction in an alleged hate speech case of 2019, Khan was disqualified from the Assembly seat. The resultant bypolls for both the Rampur Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, held at different times, were won by the BJP.

Nahid Hassan

SP leader Nahid Hassan was arrested by the UP Police in January 2022 in connection with a Gangsters’ Act case. He contested the Kairana Assembly seat in 2022 from jail and won.

Akhil Gogoi

RTI activist from Assam Akhil Gogoi was booked and put behind bars for alleged sedition in December 2019 following his participation in the anti-CAA protests in the state.

A non-political entity till then, Gogoi floated the Raijor Dal following his arrest and contested the Assam Assembly polls in 2021 from Sibsagar constituency while he was in jail. Despite not campaigning for a single day, he defeated BJP candidate Surbhi Rajkonwari.

Anand Mohan Singh

Gangster-turned-politician Anand Mohan Singh was booked by the Bihar Police in 1994 for instigating the murder of IAS officer and then Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah. In 2007, he was convicted and sentenced to death by a trial court. The sentence was later commuted to life by the Patna High Court.

While in jail, Mohan won the Lok Sabha polls twice from Sheohar, in 1996 and 1998. His wife Lovely Anand won from the Nabinagar seat in the Bihar Assembly polls in 1996 and from Barh in 2005. Singh was among the prisoners which the Bihar government released in April last year following long imprisonment.

Mohammed Shahabuddin

In 2003, eight months before the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Siwan strongman Shahabuddin was arrested on charges of abducting Chote Lal Gupta, a CPI (M-L) Liberation worker in 1999. Shahbuddin ran his campaign for the Siwan seat from jail and won. He was later convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to life. He died of Covid complications in 2021.

Anant Kumar Singh

Criminal-turned-politician Anant Kumar Singh was arrested by the Bihar Police in 2015 in a case of kidnapping and murder. In 2019, he was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) following discovery of AK-47 guns at his residence during a raid.

The raid was believed to have been a result of his fallout with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had first given him a ticket from Mokama in 2005. In 2020, Singh contested the Mokama seat on an RJD ticket and won.

Amarmani Tripathi

A former associate of gangster-politician Harishankar Tiwari, Amarmani Tripathi is a multiple-term MLA from Nautanwa constituency in Uttar Pradesh. In September 2003, Amarmani was arrested along with his wife for the murder of a poet with whom he had a relationship, Madhumita Shukla. He contested the 2007 UP Assembly polls from jail as an Independent and won.

Following his conviction in the case, his son Amanmani Tripathi was given a ticket by the SP from Nautanwa for the 2012 Assembly polls, but he lost. In November 2016, Amanmani was arrested for the murder of his wife. He contested the 2017 UP Assembly polls from jail and won.