Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party president Om Prakash Rajbhar, who recently returned to the National Democratic Alliance fold, has distanced himself from his party MLA Abbas Ansari, son of convicted mafia Mukhtar Ansari.
Rajbhar also blamed his former ally, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, for the election of Abbas Ansari on SBSP ticket.
“SBSP was an electoral ally of the SP during the 2022 UP assembly election and Akhilesh Yadav had mounted pressure on me to accommodate Abbas Ansari, so my party had to give ticket to Abbas Ansari from Mau assembly constituency and he contested election on my party symbol. Abbas Ansari was actually an SP candidate. Several candidates of the SP contested on the election symbol of Rashtriya Lok Dal in 2022 and also won,” Rajbhar said on Saturday.
Mukhtar Ansari is serving a life term and a 10-year sentence in murder and abduction and murder cases respectively. His son, Abbas, is also in jail in a money laundering case and in many other cases. Rajbhar had parted company with the SP in 2022 soon after the state assembly election and returned to the NDA fold earlier this week.
“Abbas was an SP candidate who fought on our symbol because Akhilesh Yadav said so. One hour before the nomination was set to close, he was asked to fill the nomination paper. We gave him membership but he used to move around with an SP symbol and flag on his car till we asked him to remove them,” Rajbhar claimed.
The SBSP, which wields significant influence in eastern UP, returned to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA last Sunday, five years after Rajbhar parted ways following differences with the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The party joined hands with the SP in 2022. While the BJP then won 255 seats in the 403-seat assembly, the SP emerged as the main opposition with 111 seats. The SBSP increased its tally of assembly seats to six from four in the 2017 election.
Rajbhar claimed that the SBSP would soon have representation in Lok Sabha and would seek three per cent seats in the coalition to ensure that the party gets recognised by the Election Commission of India.
The SBSP chief also sought to play down UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s reported uneasiness with his return to the alliance, claiming that it was Yogi who played the biggest role in his return to the NDA.
“Before I went to meet Amit Shah, Arvind (son) and I met the chief minister on July 12. He asked if the alliance talks had moved forward and said he too wanted my return. When Amit Shah came to Lucknow on July 2, the chief minister told him that they couldn’t win certain seats in Purvanchal without my help,” Rajbhar said.
On speculation over his induction in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet, Rajbhar said the same would be finalised in Delhi after a week. “Like there was truth in speculation about my return to the NDA, there is some truth there but as of now nothing is final,” he said.
