© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
After its chief Akhilesh Yadav’s Karhal seat, the Samajwadi Party (SP) is leaving no stone unturned to ensure a win in its stronghold Malhani constituency in Jaunpur district where gangster-turned-politician Dhananjay Singh is contesting on a Janata Dal (United) ticket, with the party having scheduled public programmes by SP patron and founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his brother Shivpal Yadav.
Mulayam and Shivpal have only campaigned for Akhilesh while Shivpal too has not campaigned for any other SP candidate before this. Akhilesh has on several occasions taken a dig at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over Singh not being arrested, despite videos of him “roaming freely” having emerged multiple times. On January 5, Akhilesh had tweeted a video of Singh playing cricket in public and said, “BJP’s work: Criminals roam free. Baba ji, make a list of the top ten of your closest mafia and then make a team. Like the IPL, you should start an ‘MBL’ meaning ‘Mafia BJP league’. The city police chief has already laid out the pitch for him, and he is the captain. This completes the eleven.”
A day later, as the row flared up, the state government transferred the investigation of the Ajit murder case to the UP Police’s Special Task Force (STF). Singh is an accused in the murder of former Mau block pramukh Ajit Singh in Lucknow on January 6 last year. After finding Dhananjay’s alleged involvement in the case, the Lucknow police had obtained an arrest warrant against him in February last year.
Now, with both Shivpal and Mulayam scheduled to address public programmes in Malhani on February 2 and 3 and with party state president Naresh Uttam Patel already stationed in Malhani, it is clear that the SP wants to ensure a win for its candidate and a defeat for Singh and is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that.
The SP has fielded sitting MLA Lucky Yadav, who is the son of seven-time MLA, two-time MP and three-time minister late Parasnath Yadav, who was considered close to Mulayam.
The seat was won by Lucky Yadav in a bypoll necessitated by the death of his father, and he won the constituency by a close margin of 4,632 votes in the bypoll in 2020 with Singh coming second.
While some in the SP say that Mulayam and Shivpal are going to the constituency on the request of Lucky Yadav, others feel that the seat has become a “prestige battle” for the SP and Akhilesh who want to ensure Singh’s defeat “anyhow”. Meanwhile, the BJP has fielded former MP from Jaunpur Krishna Pratap Singh, who is the son of Uma Nath Singh, who was the minister in the Kalyan Singh government. But it seems that the fight for the seat is restricted to the SP and the gangster-turned-politician. “SP district president for Jaunpur Lal Bahadur Yadav confirmed the public programmes in the constituency. “National president Akhilesh Yadav’s programme is yet to be shared with us, but he will address people of Malhani soon,” said the district president. He added, “Netaji and Shivpal ji are coming here because of the request by our candidate Lucky Yadav.” Mulayam and Shivpal have only campaigned for the SP so far in Karhal (Mainpuri), where Akhilesh is contesting.
The seat has a sizeable population of Yadavs, resulting in the SP’s dominance over the years. The constituency has a decent number of Muslims, and Upper Castes and Dalits, with local leaders saying that the Muslims have supported Singh in the past because of his image of being an “accessible and people’s leader”. “This time, the Muslims are voting together for SP. We are confident that Singh won’t get the Muslim votes this time,” said an SP leader in Jaunpur.
