BSP turns gaze to criminals in its stable

On Saturday,PWD Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Mines Minister Babu Singh Kushwaha held a meeting of party functionaries from different zones and districts and communicated the CM’s message to them. Sources said MLAs and MPs with controversial background are also under the watch.

“The idea is to stop the entry of criminal elements who prefer to enjoy connections in the ruling party,” a source,who is also a party coordinator,said.

The party’s decision to crack the whip on criminal elements comes a day after it expelled the Ansari brothers — Mau MLA Mukhtar Ansari and his brother and former MP Afzal Ansari — saying they were still involved in criminal activities. The party also snapped its ties with Sibgatullah Ansari,another Ansari brother who is an SP MLA from Muhammadabad.

A day earlier,the BSP had disowned one Hanuman Sharan Shukla,who was killed while on the stage during a party demonstration in Gonda district on April 14. The current BSP regime has been dogged by incidents in which party MLAs have been found to be involved in criminal cases,including those of murder.

Recently,Bhim Rao Ambedkar,BSP MLA from Lakhna seat in Etawah,was in news after an engineer Shivdas accused him of issuing threats to him.

Another MLA,Shekhar Tewari,is the key accused in a murder case in which a PWD engineer in Auraiya,M K Gupta,was killed in December 2008. Besides,Anand Sen and Jamuna Nishad lost their ministerial berths after their names figured in two separate murder cases. While Sen is an accused in the Shashi murder case in Faizabad district,Nishad’s name had figured in an FIR following the murder of a police constable in Maharajganj district.