India's BSP Chief Mayawati asks Muslims in UP to not waste their votes on SP and Congress.
Reuters

Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati announced on Thursday that four-time MLA and former mafia boss Mukhtar Ansari has been re-inducted into her party. Ansari had won the Mau seat with BSP in 1996.

Read: UP Assembly elections 2017: BJP has no chief ministerial face and that will not help the party 

Mayawati said that Ansari has been given a ticket from Mau Sadar. Apart from Ansari, his son Abbas and brother Sibakatullah too have received BSP tickets. Abbas will contest the upcoming election from Ghosi, while Sibakatullah will contest election from Mohammadabad.

Considering that Ansari is in jail, Mayawati was quoted as saying by ANI that he is yet to be proven guilty by the court. That is the reason why Ansari has been taken back into the party.

Ansari is the prime accused in the alleged murder of BJP leader Krishnanand Rai. Rai was gunned down in public along with six of his aides. The attackers had reportedly fired over 400 bullets from six AK-47 rifles. In 2010, he was also booked for the murder of Ram Singh Maurya, a witness to the murder of a local contractor.

BSP's move is viewed by observers as a counter to the consolidation of Muslims by Samajwadi Party (SP) following their alliance with Congress in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the Indian Express reported.

Ansari had previously won from the Mau seat in 2002 and 2007 as an independent candidate. In 2012, he won from Mau seat with his new party, Quami Ekta Dal (QED), which was founded in 2010.

QED had merged with SP in 2016 when Shivpal Yadav was its state president. But, the current SP national president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Akhilesh Yadav, was against the merger and did not give a go ahead. SP, meanwhile, has announced its candidate from the Mau seat.

Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections 2017 will be held from February 11 to March 8 in seven phases.

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