The Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance has defended its candidates facing criminal charges whose names have been announced for the first phase of UP assembly elections to be held on February 10.
Out of 36 candidates in the first two lists announced by the SP-RLD alliance, 27 have criminal backgrounds. The alliance justified giving tickets to them on various grounds, including “doing social work under Covid” and working for the “backward people”.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had attacked the SP-RLD alliance for giving tickets to many tainted names, including Nahid Hussain from Kairana who was arrested and sent to jail, and others involved in 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had specifically attacked the SP for fielding tainted candidates who were behind the exodus of Hindu traders from Kairana in Shamli district.
For candidate Yogesh Verma from Hastinapur, who faces over 30 criminal cases, the SP said, “He has been appraised by the people of Hastinapur and all cases against him are in public interest and under political laws,”
Verma was an MLA from this seat in 2007 and lost the election in 2017 as well as Bulandshahr Lok Sabha seat in 2019.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has mandated parties to publish justifications why they have given tickets to candidates with criminal cases.
In the list of SP-RLD 20 other candidates with criminal cases, similar justifications have been given on the lines, of the candidate having “done social service during the Covid period, and providing for the poor and backward people”.
For one candidate from Kol seat, Shah Ishaq, the SP said he helped people during the lockdown and pandemic by providing them transportation to reach home and also to COVID-19 patients along with essential commodities.
Regarding Meerut South candidate Mohammed Adil, the SP said he works for uplift of deprived class by distributing blankets in winter and had helped poor people during COVID-19 time by supplying oxygen and arranging hospital beds and medicines.
Regarding its candidate from Atrauli, Viresh Yadav, the SP, has cited how his father had defeated former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and he is a former three-time MLA of the party. “He belongs from a very old political family and his father was a six-time MLA from 1962,” the SP said.
The RLD too justified giving tickets to six candidates with criminal cases in the first two lists. RLD’s Jewar candidate Avtar Singh Badhana faces a case in which he says an application for quashing the case is pending before the Allahabad High Court.
“He is a mass leader who has taken up issues of farmers, Dalits and OBCs. He is the best person to represent farmers and the poor,” the RLD said