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LUCKNOW: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Afzal Ansari was disqualified from Lok Sabha on Monday following his conviction and four-year sentence in a kidnapping-and-murder case by a court in Uttar Pradesh.
A special court in Ghazipur on Saturday sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment in an Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act case lodged at Mohammadabad police station in Ghazipur district in 2007.
His brother, criminal-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, was also found guilty in the same case and received a 10-year prison term.
Afzal, who was present in the court at the time of the pronouncement of the judgment, was immediately taken into custody.
As per a Supreme Court order of 2013, the membership of an MP/MLA is annulled if s/he is convicted and sentenced to two years or more. Afzal had won the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the Ghazipur constituency by defeating incumbent J&K lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who was Wayanad MP, was disqualified from the Lok Sabha on March 24 after a Surat court sentenced him to two-year jail in a criminal defamation case. Besides Rahul, Samajwadi Party UP legislators Azam Khan (Rampur), his son Abdullah Azam (Suar) and BJP’s Vikram Saini (Khatauli-Muzaffarnagar) had recently lost their memberships on the same ground.
Many other lawmakers from the state have also lost their memberships before upon being convicted. In September 2013, Congress’ Rashid Masood had lost his Rajya Sabha seat after being convicted by the Supreme Court on charges of corruption and other offences.
He became the first MP to lose his seat after the SC struck down a provision in the electoral law – the Representation of the People Act of 1951 – that provided immunity to MPs and MLAs from immediate disqualification.
In December 2021, BJP MLA from Gosaiganj (Ayodhya) Indra Pratap Tewari aka Khabbu Tewari had lost his membership nearly one-and-a-half months after being convicted by an MP-MLA court in a 29-year-old fake marksheet case.
Tewari was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in October 2021. It was alleged that Tewari, despite failing in BSc second year in 1990, had managed to get admission to BSc third year. In December 2019, ‘expelled’ BJP MLA from Bangarmau (Unnao) Kuldeep Senger was disqualified following his conviction in a rape case by a Delhi sessions court.
The Delhi court had pronounced its verdict of life imprisonment for Sengar, a four-term MLA. He was accused of rape of a girl in his village (Makhi) in 2017. The girl attempted self-immolation outside the CM’s residence in Lucknow in 2018 allegedly after the police did not take action on her complaint. The victim’s father, who was arrested by the police, died in police custody after he was allegedly beaten up in the lock-up allegedly by Sengar’s brother Atul Sengar.
Following public outrage, the CM had handed over the case to the CBI. Before this, in April 2019, BJP MLA from Hamirpur Ashok Singh Chandel had lost his assembly membership after he was convicted and awarded life term in a 1997 murder case by the Hamirpur district court and the verdict was upheld by the Allahabad high court. He is currently in jail.
A special court in Ghazipur on Saturday sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment in an Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act case lodged at Mohammadabad police station in Ghazipur district in 2007.
His brother, criminal-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, was also found guilty in the same case and received a 10-year prison term.
Afzal, who was present in the court at the time of the pronouncement of the judgment, was immediately taken into custody.
As per a Supreme Court order of 2013, the membership of an MP/MLA is annulled if s/he is convicted and sentenced to two years or more. Afzal had won the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the Ghazipur constituency by defeating incumbent J&K lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who was Wayanad MP, was disqualified from the Lok Sabha on March 24 after a Surat court sentenced him to two-year jail in a criminal defamation case. Besides Rahul, Samajwadi Party UP legislators Azam Khan (Rampur), his son Abdullah Azam (Suar) and BJP’s Vikram Saini (Khatauli-Muzaffarnagar) had recently lost their memberships on the same ground.
Many other lawmakers from the state have also lost their memberships before upon being convicted. In September 2013, Congress’ Rashid Masood had lost his Rajya Sabha seat after being convicted by the Supreme Court on charges of corruption and other offences.
He became the first MP to lose his seat after the SC struck down a provision in the electoral law – the Representation of the People Act of 1951 – that provided immunity to MPs and MLAs from immediate disqualification.
In December 2021, BJP MLA from Gosaiganj (Ayodhya) Indra Pratap Tewari aka Khabbu Tewari had lost his membership nearly one-and-a-half months after being convicted by an MP-MLA court in a 29-year-old fake marksheet case.
Tewari was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in October 2021. It was alleged that Tewari, despite failing in BSc second year in 1990, had managed to get admission to BSc third year. In December 2019, ‘expelled’ BJP MLA from Bangarmau (Unnao) Kuldeep Senger was disqualified following his conviction in a rape case by a Delhi sessions court.
The Delhi court had pronounced its verdict of life imprisonment for Sengar, a four-term MLA. He was accused of rape of a girl in his village (Makhi) in 2017. The girl attempted self-immolation outside the CM’s residence in Lucknow in 2018 allegedly after the police did not take action on her complaint. The victim’s father, who was arrested by the police, died in police custody after he was allegedly beaten up in the lock-up allegedly by Sengar’s brother Atul Sengar.
Following public outrage, the CM had handed over the case to the CBI. Before this, in April 2019, BJP MLA from Hamirpur Ashok Singh Chandel had lost his assembly membership after he was convicted and awarded life term in a 1997 murder case by the Hamirpur district court and the verdict was upheld by the Allahabad high court. He is currently in jail.
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