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Journalism of Courage
Earlier this week, BSP president Mayawati inducted Shaista Parveen, the wife mafia don-turned-politician and former MP Atiq Ahmad, in the party, with a plan to field her for the mayor seat in Prayagraj in the upcoming local body elections. This was days after announcing Saima Masood, wife of former Congress leader and now a BSP face in Western UP, as party candidate for the mayoral elections in Saharanpur.
However, a formal announcement about Parveen’s candidature was put on hold, as the local body polls are getting delayed to complete the exercise of OBC survey for reservations.
Sources in the BSP said party president Mayawati was increasing focus on Muslim voters, and her move to field women Muslim candidates in mayoral elections was an effort in this direction. Since the 2022 assembly polls, Mayawati is constantly trying to message UP’s Muslims that even with their votes, the SP could not defeat BJP. “SP got your votes in the assembly elections, but the BJP still won. If Muslims had supported the BSP, BJP would have lost power in the state. BSP has shown its strength in Azamgarh Lok Sabha by-poll last year too, where our party’s Muslim candidate got over 2.66 lakh votes and the SP lost its stronghold seat to BJP with a thin margin,” said a BSP leader.
Across 403 assembly seats, BSP in the 2022 polls had fielded the most number of Muslim candidates — 88 — whereas the SP-alliance had fielded only 61 candidates from the community. No Muslim candidate of the BSP won, while 30 of SP’s Muslim candidates emerged victorious, along with the two Muslim candidates won by its ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). A Muslim candidate of another SP ally Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) also won.
Shaista Parveen joined the BSP in a party event organised on January 5 in the presence of senior leader, including chief zonal in-charge of Prayagraj, Jagannath Pal, former MP Ghanshyam Chandra Kharwar, and other zonal in-charges, including Amrendra Bahadur Bhartiya and Raju Gautam.
Significantly, Shaista is the wife of Atiq, who was a SP MP from Phulpur from 2004 to 2009. The mafiosi is named in at least 40 cases, including the 2005 murder of BSP MLA Raju Pal in Allahabad. He is also a five-term MLA from Allahabad West.
In the 2022 polls, Mayawati had denied a ticket to jailed muscleman-politician Mukhtar Ansari from Mau, citing the criminal cases he was facing. Ansari was elected MLA from Mau on a BSP ticket in 2017.
When asked about the criminal cases against Atiq and of his wife joining the party, BSP spokesperson Dharamveer Chaudhary said, “There is no criminal case against his wife Shaista Parveen and she is committed to clean and fair politics.” Chaudhary confirmed that BSP has planned to field her for the mayor seat in Prayagraj.
Chaudhary said Muslims have realised that the SP has used them as voters but never stood up for their rights. “Muslims are leaning towards BSP and the party is giving them regard and representation, Chaudhary said.
Last month, Mayawati had warned Muslims of UP, saying they need to carefully think over the results of the bypolls to Mainpuri Lok Sabha and Rampur assembly seats in the state, so that they can be saved from being “cheated” in future elections. She referred to the low polling in Rampur as a “planned one”, and wondered whether the SP’s victory in Mainpuri and its loss for the first time in Azam Khan’s stronghold of Rampur, was the result of connivance between the SP and the BJP.
Warning the Muslim community, she had tweeted, “Iss bare mein khas kar Muslim samaj ko kafi chintan karne wah samajhne ki bhi jaroorat hai taki age hone wale chunavon mein dhokha khane se bacha ja sake (Everyone, especially Muslims, need to reflect upon and understand what happened, so that they don’t get cheated in forthcoming elections).”
Continuing with her new-found Muslim-love, earlier this month, when the over 4,000 families—majority of which were Muslims—in Haldwani in Uttarakhand were facing eviction from land claimed by the Railways, Mayawati had termed the removal of these “Muslim families” as an “inhuman act”.
