Lucknow, March 24 (IANS) At least 16 of the 80 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Lok Sabha candidates in Uttar Pradesh have a criminal past, says the National Election Watch, a voluntary body opposed to criminalisation of politics.
According to its study, 13 of the BSP's 16 tainted nominees were involved in heinous offences like murder, attempt to murder, extortion and kidnapping.
'Election Watch proposes to make country-wide appeals to voters to say 'no' to all such people irrespective of their party affiliation,' I.C. Dwivedi, the Election Watch's Uttar Pradesh chapter chief, pointed out.
Anil Bairwal, the Association for Democratic Reforms representative and Election Watch coordinator in the state, released a list of people with criminal records who have been named as candidates by the BSP.
D.P. Yadav, fielded from Sambhal, tops the list along with Mukhtar Ansari (Varanasi). While Yadav's name spells terror in parts of western Uttar Pradesh, with his sons facing charges in the murder of Nitish Katara, Ansari was once convicted by a court for indulging in alleged terrorist activities. Ansari is also a murder accused.
Among the BSP's other tainted nominees are Akbar Ahmad 'Dumpy' (Azamgarh), S.P. Singh Baghel (Firozabad), Qadir Rana (Muzaffarnagar), Vinay Shakya (Mainpuri), Islam Sabir Ansari (Barielly), Swami Prasad Maurya (Kushinagar), Rizwan Zaheer (Shravasti), Ram Kumar (Hardoi), Girish Chandra (Kaushambhi), Rakesh Pandey (Ambedkar Nagar), Mohammad Tahir (Sultanpur), Afzal Ansari (Ghazipur), Kunwar Shivraj Singh (Aonla) and Aruna Shankar Shukla 'Anna' (Unnao).
|
|
Comments:
