Jailed mafia don and MLA Mukhtar Ansari is all set to contest the Assembly polls from the Mau Sadar seat district on the symbol of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) from jail.

Mukhtar’s lawyer Daroga Singh confirmed that he had submitted a plea before the court of special judge (MP/MLA) to allow Mukhtar’s lawyer, notary lawyer, proposers and photographer to meet him in the Banda jail to complete the formality of seeking his signature and other formalities to file nomination from Mau Sadar seat. The court has accepted the plea.

Singh said that the SBSP has decided to field Mukhtar on its ticket from Mau Sadar seat.

Party symbol, ‘Chhadi’ (walking stick) and all other necessary documents had been attached with the plea submitted before the court.

Mukhtar emerged victorious from the Mau Sadar Assembly seat as a Bahujan Samaj Party member in 1996. Since then, he has won the seat in all consecutive elections and this will be the sixth time he is contesting the seat.

His party, Qaumi Ekta Dal, was merged into BSP before he contested the 2017 Assembly election on its ticket.

Mukhtar had defeated SBSP’s Mahendra Rajbhar to retain this seat.

The jailed don, had come in the line of fire when the Yogi Adityanath government cracked down on him and his aides.

As per the police records of Varanasi zone, the loss to the economic empire of Mukhtar gang in this region of east UP had reached close to Rs 400 crore, when the last major action of seizure of property of his son had taken place in Ghazipur on December 22, 2021.

Apart from bulldozing buildings, seizure of movable and immovable properties, the police have targeted the illegal earnings of this gang through extortion and fish trades, grabbing contracts in PWD and other government departments.

Mukhtar Ansari’s elder brother Afzal Ansari is a BSP MP while his other brother Sigbatullah Ansari is contesting from Ghazipur on a Samajwadi Party ticket.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)