Political opportunism washes away taint: Despite active probes, politicians switch loyalties, get big party tickets

India has seen many men and women with a criminal history enter the political fray, but apart from the nit-picking by rival parties, questions are rarely raised on their infamous past and often, the clout-bearing leaders end up being elected as MLAs or even MPs.

However, with the heat turning up on the Saradha chit-fund scam in West Bengal and the ghost of the scandal coming to haunt former TMC leader Mukul Roy and ex-Assam Congress member Himanta Biswa Sarma, the focus is back on possible political opportunism practised by tainted netas. Both Roy and Sarma joined the BJP when the CBI probe in the case was on and they have reportedly become hindsight targets post their political shift .

This is not the first instance of political leaders jumping boats and being welcomed by Opposition parties despite active cases against them. Many such examples emerge from the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where parties like the BSP, SP, RJD and JD(U) are known to have repeatedly fielded tainted candidates for appeasing the vote bank in a particular constituency.

Anand Sen Yadav

BSP MLA Anand Sen Yadav, who was earlier a member of the Samajwadi Party (SP), was indicted in more than ten criminal cases including murder, assault, and extortion and fought the 2007 Uttar Pradesh state Assembly elections from jail. He won, and was appointed the Minister of State for Food Processing in Mayawati’s cabinet.

Interestingly, he was in jail during the swearing-in ceremony as the court refused him leave since he was locked up for “serious criminal charges”. Eventually, a second ceremony was held for him. A probe was only initiated against him when he resigned from his post in 2007.

Shekhar Tiwari

Shekhar Tiwari, another BSP MLA, joined the Mayawati-led party (was earlier part of INC) in 2007 (BSP won the 2007 elections in Uttar Pradesh) despite various criminal cases against him .

According to police reports, Tiwari was being investigated in 14 criminal cases relating to government contracts and extortion, but after he was elected as a MLA, ten of those cases were closed for want of evidence.

Anand Mohan Singh

Singh served a three-month jail sentence for violence in 1983 but in 1990 was elected from the Mahishi constituency to the Bihar Legislative Assembly as a representative of the Janata Dal. He continued his criminal activities while being an MLA, leading a notorious sectarian gang, described by a  Hindustan Times report as a “private army”, during the 1990s.

In 1993, he founded the Bihar People’s Party and contested the 1995 state Assembly elections. The BPP later joined with the Samata Party, for whom he stood successfully in the Sheohar constituency as a Lok Sabha candidate in the 1996 general elections. His success in those elections came despite him being in prison during the campaign. He was again elected from the constituency in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections as a Rashtriya Janata Party candidate supported by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

By 1999, Singh had switched from the BPP to BJP that was courting him and numerous other criminal-politicians in Bihar as it sought support for the national government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. However, Singh lost his Sheohar seat to Anwarul Haq of the BJP in the 1999 Lok Sabha election. Thereafter, he merged the BPP with the Indian National Congress (INC) and hoped to stand again for election in Sheohar.

Singh later joined JD(U) . He is thought to have been a significant influence in the creation of the NDA government in Bihar headed by JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar from November 2005, and bringing together the Rajput and Bhumihar communities in the state. In 2010, Singh once again supported the Congress and opposed Kumar in the Bihar Assembly election, although he could not stand as a candidate due to being in jail

Mohammad Shahabuddin

Shahabuddin, a gangster turned politician was elected four times as an RJD MP and twice an MLA from Bihar’s Siwan. Being convicted in many criminal cases, he was debarred from contesting the 2009 general elections.

In 2004, Shahabuddin’s opponents were intimidated against campaigning even though he was in prison during the elections. Immediately after the elections, which he won by a margin of 1,00,000 votes, nine party workers of the Opposition candidate, JD(U)’s Om Prakash Yadav were found murdered, allegedly for daring to contest against him.

In the early 1990s, Shahabuddin came into the political limelight, joining the Janata Dal youth wing under Lalu Prasad Yadav. He won the 1990 and 1995 Vidhan Sabha elections and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 on the JD ticket, after which he grew in stature. With Lalu holding sway over the then Bihar government, and with the formation of the RJD in 1997, Shahabuddin’s power increased dramatically. A report by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties in 2001 stated that: The patronage and defacto immunity from legal action offered to him by the RJD government gradually made him a law unto himself giving him an aura of invincibility since the police turned a blind eye to his criminal activities.

The subsequent elections saw largescale rigging as booth capturing was reported from as many as 500 polling stations and re-polling was ordered by the Election Commission of India.

In April 2005, a police raid led by then Siwan SP Ratna Sanjay on Shahabuddin’s house in Pratappur helped recover illegal arms such as AK-47s, and other military weaponry authorised for possession only by the army, including night-vision goggles and laser-guided guns. Some of the discovered arms had the markings of Pakistan ordnance factories, and the then Bihar DGP, DP Ojha alleged that Shahabuddin had ties with Pakistan intelligence agency ISI . Subsequently, eight non-bailable warrants were issued for arresting Shahabuddin.

However, his party was part of the UPA headed by Manmohan Singh, and thus, continued to yield considerable clout. Athough he was living in his official assigned quarter in Delhi, and attending the Parliament, the Delhi Police and a special team sent from Bihar could not arrest him for over three months.

However, a team from Bihar, was finally able to arrest him from his official residence in Delhi in November 2005. Subsequently, he was refused bail by the Supreme Court, where he was asked : By virtue of being an MP, are you entitled to keep these weapons, including a night vision device, when even the police, CRPF and other security agencies do not have it and only the army possesses it.

Pappu Kalani

Kalani won elections for the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 1986 on a Congress ticket after emerging as the leader of an organized crime syndicate in the 1980s. He also won the 1990 elections as a Congress candidate, but later contested as an Independent candidate in the 1995 and 1999 elections. Kalani has been elected continuously from the seat since then, including two elections from 1992–2001 while being in jail on murder charges.

At one point, former Maharashtra chief minister Sudhakarrao Naik made a statement that then Congress chief minister Sharad Pawar, had asked him to “go easy on Pappu Kalani”. Later, Shiv Sena chief minister Manohar Joshi announced his intention to prosecute criminal-politicians , but political realities ensured that nothing much was done.

Under Indian law, someone who has not been sentenced to more than two years for a crime cannot be considered guilty of a major crime and is free to fight elections. Thus, despite being in jail, Kalani kept fighting and winning the Assembly seat from Ulhasnagar.

In 1999 , when his mentor Pawar formed the NCP, Kalani also joined it. However, mounting public pressure proved disruptive for the nascent party and he was forced to resign. At this time, he handed over the Municipal corporation to his wife Jyoti Kalani, who would also soon be arrested on charges of forgery, non-payment of revenue and illegal liquor manufacturing.

However, staging a comeback, in 2004, Kalani again won the Assembly elections, as a candidate of the Republican Party of India (Athavale). His wife, however, continues to be with the NCP.

Mukhtar Ansari

Mukhtar Ansari, who has multiple cases of murder, extortion and kidnapping against him, was elected as an MLA from the Mau constituency a record five times. He was the prime accused in the Krishnanand Rai murder case and has pleaded not guilty.

Ansari won his first Assembly election as a BSP candidate and the next two as an independent. He had joined BSP in 2007 and unsuccessfully contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election. After BSP expelled him in 2010 for criminal activities , he formed his own party Quami Ekta Dal with his brothers. He won from the Mau seat in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh elections but later in 2017, merged the Quami Ekta Dal with BSP and won the next state elections as a BSP candidate.

BSP had allowed in Ansari and his brother Afzal after they claimed that they had been falsely framed in criminal cases for fighting against the “feudal system”, and promised to refrain from participating in any crimes. Mayawati portrayed Ansari as a ‘Robin Hood’ and called him “a messiah of the poor”. Ansari fought the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi on a BSP ticket, while being lodged in the jail.

However, on 26 January, 2017, Ansari rejoined the BSP, right before the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections . There was also speculation about the Ansari brothers joining the rival SP . Mayawati defended his entry into the party, stating that the criminal charges against Ansari had not been proven, and that the party gives people a chance to reform themselves.

Sukh Ram

Sukh Ram represented the Mandi Lok Sabha constituency, which his son contested and won in 1993. Sukh Ram won the seat in 1996, but the two were expelled from the Congress party for their involvement in a telecom scam. Post this, Ram and his son formed the Himachal Vikas Congress and had a post-poll alliance with the BJP, which led them to join the government.

Ram lost the Lok Sabha election in 1998, but won the Assembly seat. His son Anil Sharma was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1998. In the 2003 Assembly polls, Ram retained the Mandi Assembly seat but joined the Congress in the run-up to the 2004 Lok Sabha polls whereas Sharma won the Mandi Assembly seat in 2007 and 2012 as a Congress candidate.

However, recently Ram crossed over to BJP . Welcoming Ram into the fold, BJP was quoted as saying that cases against Ram were “bygones”.

Francisco Pacheco

Pacheco has been involved in various controversies and has ten criminal cases registered against him. In June 2006, Pacheco slapped a junior engineer Kapil Natekar for not attending his personal assistant’s call. Pacheco was sentenced to imprisonment for six months. In June 2010, he was arrested over his alleged involvement in the suicide of his girlfriend Nadia Torrado. He was forced to resign from his ministerial post in the Congress-led government, but was later given a clean chit due to the absence of evidence.

Pacheco had won the 2002 Legislative Assembly election as a member of the United Goans Democratic Party. He later split and formed the United Goans Democratic Party (Secular), which merged with the BJP in January 2005. He later joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and won the 2007 election. Prior to the 2012 Legislative Assembly election, he left the NCP and joined the Goa Vikas Party (GVP). Pacheco’s wife Viola Pacheco was made the GVP president in 2012 but he quit the party and joined the Goa Su-raj Party only to become the GVP supremo later and ally with the ruling BJP.

Santokben Jadeja

Known to be the only female don of India, Santokben was an MLA from 1990 to 1995 as a candidate of Janata Dal and was close to former Gujarat chief minister Chimanbhai Patel who was associated with both the Janta Dal and the Congress.

Santokben was was alleged to be behind the murder of 14 people, who she believed were responsible for her husband’s murder. She was arrested for giving shelter to people, who were accused of raping two girls.

However, her closeness to Patel’s political outfit saw her rise as a political power in the coastal region of Gujarat as she became the first and only woman from Porbadar district to be elected to the state assembly in 1989. In December 2002, she filed her nomination papers for the Kutiyana Assembly seat but later withdrew in favour of the Congress candidate.

Phoolan Devi

Devi, a noted dacoit turned-social reformer contested the 1996 Lok Sabha election as a member of the Samajwadi Party as  Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government in Uttar Pradesh had withdrawn all cases against her and summarily released her from prison. She won the election and served as an MP during the 11th Lok Sabha. She lost her seat in the 1998 election but was re-elected in the 1999 election and was the sitting MP from Mirzapur when she was assassinated in Delhi.

Other examples include: Neelalohithadasan Nadar who was accused and convicted of sexual assault against women quit JD(S) and joined the BSP in 2018, heading the state unit of the party. Presently, Nadar is the state president of JD(S) in Kerala; Jagannath Mishra, an accused in the fodder scam, who was convicted in 2013 and left the Congress to join NCP and is currently a member of the JD(U); Churchill Alemao, a former Congress and TMC member, Alemao was arrested in 2015 in the JICA scam. However, on 17 October, 2016, he joined the NCP and declared his intent to contest the election.