Mayawati had fought the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2007 on the issue of poor law and order situation under Mulayam Singh'sgovernment. She had promised that in case she comes to power action would be taken against the criminals. She won the elections easily and was sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in May 2007. But her one and a half year regime has not proved good for the people.
In her regime the law and order position is no better than Mulayam Singh'sgovernment. Terror is still prevailing in the State. Businessmen, government servants, women, students and other groups of society are always under constant pressure of anti-social elements and criminals. Recently an executive engineer, Manoj Kumar Gupta, was brutally murdered in Auraiya district of the State by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA Shekhar Tiwari for refusing to pay money for celebrating the birthday of Mayawati. In the same month, four businessmen were murdered in Baghpat district.
These types of crimes have become quite common in the State. More than 500 people have been murdered or have died in group clashes in UP within one and a half year of Mayawati'sgovernment. The law and order situation in the state in becoming worst day-by-day. But Mayawati is seeing a conspiracy in the matter. She told the journalists that it is a conspiracy of Samajwadi Party and Congress to defame the BSP.
Mayawati is the product of Mulayam Singh'scriminal political culture. This very culture is criminalising politics and harbouring the criminals. The Congress is the founder of this type of politics. Harishanker Tiwari and the late Virendra Pratap Shahi were protected by the then Congress government led by ND Tiwari and the late Veer Bahadur Singh consequently in 1980-85. This was the starting of the criminal culture to harbour politicians with criminal antecedents. Mulayam Singh has also got criminal antecedent. In politics he woos criminals to win elections by hook or by crook. Mayawati followed Mulayam Singh's criminal political culture. We can say that government may change but criminal turned politicians continue to enjoy power.
In 2007 elections, Mayawati fielded 131 candidates with criminal cases against them of which 63 won. The list includes gangsters like Susheel Kumar Singh with over 25 criminal cases. He is nephew of dreaded criminal Brajesh Singh. Jitendra Singh with more than 12 criminal cases was dropped from the ministry last year after his name figured in Shashi murder case. The latest list of criminals in BSP includes: DP Yadav, western UP mafia don, Dhananjay Singh, eastern UP mafia don, Arun Shankar Shukla alias Anna, a listed criminal of Lucknow (the BSP candidate for Lok Sabha from Unnao). Interestingly, Anna was booked by Mayawati herself for trying to manhandle her in the State guest house on June 2, 1995, when she withdrew support from the then SP-BSP government. Now Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raja Bhaiya and Mukhtar Ansari are also with the BSP.
Mulayam Singh Yadav was quick to dub Mayawati'sregime as ?criminal raj? after the engineer'skilling but in 2007 elections 35 per cent SP candidates had criminal cases against them. In fact the situation was not better in Mulayam'srule from August 2003 to May 2007, when 81 MLAs having criminal records were supporting him. Mulayam Singh'sCabinet had over two dozen tainted ministers including Raja Bhaiya and Harishankar Tiwari, the first mafia in UP to join politics in 1980.
What can a person expect under such law and order situation when the political parties are themselves harbouring the criminals?
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