For the last several years, Jamuna Prasad Nishad, the latest to be shown the door from Mayawati’s Cabinet, had been working on his image. From someone who has several cases of rioting against him, Nishad was trying to emerge into a powerful community leader. But he probably tried too hard.

On Saturday, he allegedly led a mob of Nishads, men from his community, to the Maharajganj police station and ransacked it, alleging that the cops had mishandled the rape case of a Nishad girl. As they left the station, someone from the mob fired, leading to the death of a police constable. On Sunday, Nishad, Minister of State (independent charge) for Fisheries, was sacked.

Nishad, who is a BSP MLA from Pipraich in Gorakhpur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh, is a two-time MLA. He had to contest five assembly and three parliament elections before he could taste success in the 2007 assembly elections.

In the early days of his political career, Nishad was linked to criminal activities due to his proximity to Om Prakash Paswan, an MLA from Maniram constituency, who was murdered in 1998 during the Lok Sabha elections. But over the years, Nishad came to be known as a strong local leader.

Nishad has a following of over one lakh people of his Nishad community in Gorakhpur area. This was the reason why the CM sacked him but the party is yet to expel him.

Nishad was never the kind to be tied down by party ideologies—he first fought the assembly elections on a Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket but switched over to the BSP in time for the last elections. “Even if he contests the election independently, he is sure to win,” said one of his followers.

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