UP polls: Mayawati dumps Mukhtar Ansari, says no ticket to ‘bahubalis’

LUCKNOW: In a politically significant move, BSP chief Mayawarti on Friday announced denying party ticket to gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari in the forthcoming UP polls.
Mukhtar, at present lodged in Banda jail, is a sitting BSP MLA from Mau assembly constituency, the seat which he has been representing since 1996.
The development comes almost two weeks after Mukhtar's brother Sibgatullah Ansari joined the Samajwadi Party, in what relayed sharp signals about the Ansari family moving away from the BSP camp.
In place of Mukhtar, Mayawati has decided to field party state president Bhim Rajbhar, indicating a deft strategy to consolidate the Rajbhar community, which accounts for a sizable chunk of the voting population in the east UP region.
The BSP chief categorically said that her party has decided not to field 'bahubalis' or a `mafia don' and that the zonal coordinators have been asked to closely verify the credentials of the candidates before picking them.
This, she said, is being done so that action could be taken against “such people” (having criminal antecedents) when she comes to power after the 2022 assembly elections.
Mayawati said that her party vowed to establish the "rule of law" while abiding by the motto of 'Sarvajan Hitay Sarvajan Sukhay' (welfare of everyone). Her decision to deny tickets to candidates with criminal background comes close on the heels of her party stance to woo the Brahmin community as part of a tried and tested social engineering formula that catapulted her to full majority for the first time in 2007 UP assembly elections. Experts said that the upper caste had then voted in favour of BSP in 2007.
The BSP chief's hard stance against Mukhtar comes two days after All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi inducted the family of dreaded don Atiq Ahmad, invoking sharp response from various political quarters. Owaisi had categorically slammed that notion of calling people from one particular community as `bahubalis' while steering clear that his party stood for the welfare of Muslim community which has been receiving a harsh deal in the incumbent BJP dispensation.
It was only two years ago that Mukhtar's brother Afzal Ansari won the Lok Sabha election from Ghazipur seat after Mayawati cobbled up an alliance with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party. In fact, Mayawati won 10 seats in comparison to five won by the Samajwadi Party. With BSP boss calling off an alliance with the SP, Akhilesh has been seeking to position his party as the main opposition to the ruling BJP in the run-up to the high stake UP elections.
Mayawati had inducted Mukhtar and his family just before the 2017 UP assembly elections. This was soon after Akhilesh hardened his stand against Mukhtar and his Quami Ekta Dal (QED), which had been merged with the ruling SP. Akhilesh's opposition led to the demerger and then Mayawati whipped up the minority card by giving nearly 100 seats to the Muslim candidates amid a strife in the family of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Ansari family is believed to wield considerable influence in at least half a dozen districts in east UP.
Her decision, however, fell flat as except for Mukhtar, none of the members from the Ansari family could register a win. While Sibgatullah lost to saffron party candidate Alka Rai, widow of slain BJP leader Krishnand Rai, from Mohammadabad constituency in Ghazipur, Mukhtar's son, Abbas Ansari, a national-level shooter, lost to Phagu Chauhan in Ghosi. Chauhan, an OBC (Nonia) is at present governor of Bihar.
AIMIM willing to field Mukhtar Ansari from Mau
Hours after Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati announced that her party won't field sitting MLA Mukhtar Ansari from Mau in the 2022 polls, All India Ittehadul Muslameen's (AIMIM's) Uttar Pradesh unit announced that it would welcome the jailed gangster if he wanted to join them and also give him ticket to contest from Mau.
AIMIM's state president Shauquat Ali told TOI that if the law of the land allowed Mukhtar Ansari to contest elections, then AIMIM is more than ready to welcome him into the party-fold. "We will field him as an AIMIM candidate from Mau. Not only this, if he wants to contest as an independent candidate, AIMIM will extend full support to him," Shauquat Ali said.
AIMIM's announcement comes days after the party's national president Asaduddin Owaisi inducted jailed gangster and former MP Atiq Ahmed and his family members into the party fold at a function in Lucknow.