Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on April 16 declared 11 candidates in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections together with a ticket to Shrikala Singh, wife of gangster-turned-politician Dhananjay Singh, lodged in jail from the Jaunpur constituency. Gangster-turned-politician Dhananjay Singh has been sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in a 2020 kidnapping and extortion case. He is presently with the Janata Dal (United).
What is the case
In 2020 Dhananjay Singh and his affiliate Santosh Vikram had been responsible within the case of kidnapping of Namami Gange challenge supervisor Abhinav Singhal. Muzaffarnagar resident Singhal had filed a case towards Singh and his companion Vikram on May 10, 2020, at Line Bazar police station below IPC sections of kidnapping, extortion, conspiracy and others. According to the FIR, Vikram, together with two associates, kidnapped Singhal and took him to the residence of Singh the place the previous MP got here with a pistol and abused him and pressured him to provide low-quality materials. On refusal, he threatened Singhal and demanded extortion, it was alleged. However, the previous MP was arrested on this case and later acquired bail from the Allahabad High Court.
Singh and politics
Singh had plans to contest the Jaunpur Lok Sabha seat on the NDA constituent JD-U ticket. However, after the BJP declared former Maharashtra residence minister Kripashankar Singh as its candidate from that seat, he acquired upset. The former MP was reportedly attempting to get a ticket from the Samajwadi Party. Singh, who served as a member of Parliament within the fifteenth Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014 as a Bahujan Samaj Party member, is described as ‘Purvanchal Bahubali’. In 2011, BSP president Mayawati expelled him from the get together on prices of anti-party actions. He had gained elections for the primary time in 2002 from the Rari Assembly seat as an impartial candidate.
