A day after the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government declared that Hanuman Saran Shukla, who was killed in Gonda on Wednesday, was not a member of the ruling party but a “history-sheeter,” Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday expelled alleged mafia don Mokhtar Ansari and his brother Afzal Ansari from the party for their “involvement in criminal activities.” A BSP spokesman said they failed to “reform themselves.”
She also ruled out taking further support from the eldest of the Ansari siblings, Sibghatullah Ansari, who is the Samajwadi Party MLA from Mohammadabad.
Ms. Mayawati's move, coming on the heels of the Gonda incident, seemed to suggest that she had launched a “clean-up operation” before the 2012 Assembly elections and is seen as an attempt to silence the Opposition criticism that the BSP was a “party of criminals and mafia” and thus, redeem its image.
Mr. Mokhtar Ansari, who is in Mathura jail for alleged involvement in the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Krishnanand Rai, is an Independent MLA from Mau. He contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election from Varanasi on the BSP ticket. Mr. Ansari was in jail when he contested the election. In fact, he has been incarcerated since 2005 and only last week he was shifted from the Ghazipur jail to the Mathura jail following a raid by the police.
Mr. Afzal Ansari is a former Samajwadi Party MP from Ghazipur.
An official spokesman of the BSP said the Ansari brothers had assured the Chief Minister at the time of joining the party in 2009 that they would remain committed to the party's policies and programmes, and would shun criminal activities. They were given an opportunity to reform themselves by Ms. Mayawati. But, after the recent raid on the Ghazipur jail — from where “objectionable material” was recovered from Mr. Ansari's cell — Ms. Mayawati was informed that they were still involved in criminal activities. She then took the decision to expel them., the spokesman said.
He made it known that the brothers had “requested” Ms. Mayawati to take them back in the party following which they were given a chance to reform.
Apart from Mr. Ansari, another alleged mafia don of Lucknow and the former SP MLC, Aruna Shankar Shukla alias “Anna,” was inducted in the BSP and contested the Lok Sabha poll from Unnao. Mr. Shukla lost and was later expelled from the party by Ms. Mayawati for alleged “anti-party activities.”
