Unnao: Ad with Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s pic sparks row, nagar panchayat says ‘he’s MLA’

The advertisement also has pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, state BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh and Uttar Pradesh Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit, besides Sengar’s wife Sangeeta Singh, who is the chairman of the zila panchayat.

Dixit told The Indian Express that Sengar’s photograph was included in the advertisement because he is the local MLA. “As Kuldeep Singh is an MLA, I found nothing wrong in using his photograph. The case against Kuldeep Singh is pending and court is yet to pass any order on it. I don’t understand why people are creating a controversy over the advertisement.”

He added he used the photographs of senior BJP leaders in the advertisement because he liked their style of running the government. “I am impressed with the present government policies. In the (Assembly) election, I helped many BJP leaders, including Kuldeep Singh Sengar,” said Dixit who claimed to have won the panchayat polls as an Independent.

When contacted, BJP’s Unnao district president Shri Kant Katiyar said Dixit was not a party worker. Sengar is accused in at least three cases related to the Unnao rape. The Central Bureau of Investigation had chargesheeted the MLA in two cases — rape and framing the victim’s father in a case under arms Act. He is presently lodged in Tihar jail in Delhi. The CBI is now probing the MLA’s role in the July 28 incident, in which the Unnao rape victim and her lawyer were critically injured and her two aunts died.