Front Page

BSP, SP try to poach MPs

LUCKNOW: Using the nuclear deal as an excuse for settling political scores, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party have stepped up efforts to rope in rival members of Parliament in Uttar Pradesh to their cause. The BSP and the SP are on two sides of the political divide with the former opposing the nuclear deal and the latter supporting it.

Bahujan Samaj Party MP from Azamgarh, Akbar Ahmed Dumpy’s meeting with the incarcerated MP from Ghazipur, Afzaal Ansari, in the Ghazipur jail on Wednesday is seen as another attempt by the ruling party to draw him away from the SP.

Mr. Ahmed’s visit is said to have been arranged by senior officials of the Mayawati administration and it is learnt that he tried to convince the SP MP on the need to oppose the deal.

Mr. Ansari and his brother, Mokhtar Ansari, who is an Independent MLA from Mau, are lodged in the Ghazipur jail in connection with the BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai murder case.

While Mr. Ahmed reportedly termed his visit a private affair and said he had come to meet an old friend, a BSP spokesman in Lucknow denied that it was arranged by the party.

Terming it a “personal matter” of Mr. Ahmed, the spokesman said no other inference should be drawn. People’s representatives cutting across party lines met each other on several occasions and their meeting had no motive, the spokesman said in a press release.

Whereas Mr. Ahmed could meet Mr. Ansari, the leader of the Samajwadi Parliamentary Party, Ram Gopal Yadav and the Samajwadi MP from Kanauj and Mulayam Singh’s son, Akhilesh Yadav, were unable to meet the jailed BSP MP from Machhlishahr, Uma Kant Yadav. He is lodged in the Fatehgarh jail.

Sources said the incarcerated MP received a message from Mr. Ram Gopal Yadav on Sunday last requesting a meeting. But the ruling party got wind of the move. Consequently, PWD and Irrigation Minister and BSP’s national general secretary, Naseemuddin Siddiqui was despatched to the Fatehgarh jail to scuttle the SP’s game plan.

After Mr. Siddiqui’s meeting with Mr. Uma Kant Yadav on Tuesday, the MP was on Wednesday admitted to the Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University and Hospital in Lucknow.

The BSP MP was sent to judicial custody in November 2007 for his alleged involvement in a case of property dispute. He was not expelled from the party.

Another jailed MP Atiq Ahmed, expelled from the Samajwadi Party by Mr. Mulayam Singh in May this year, has been granted permission to participate in the Parliament proceedings on July 21 and 22. Technically still a Samajwadi MP, Mr. Ahmed has reportedly rejected the suggestion that general secretary Amar Singh was his leader. The Phulpur MP, who is in judicial custody in connection with the BSP MLA Raju Pal murder case, is fighting several other cases also filed against him under the present regime.

Considered close to rebel Samajwadi MP, Beni Prasad Verma, Mr. Ahmed was being wooed by Mr. Verma to cast his vote in favour of the UPA government.

Sources said that the BSP MP from Faizabad, Mitra Sen Yadav, was approached several times by the Samajwadi Party leadership. A former MP of the Communist Party of India, who was also in the SP, Mr. Mitra Sen is reportedly unhappy with the BSP leadership.

His son and former Minister, Anand Sen Yadav, is in judicial custody in connection with the Shashi kidnap murder case. His younger son, Arvind Sen Yadav, who was till recently the ASP, Traffic, in Lucknow, has been reportedly shunted to an insignificant posting.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu