Uttar Pradesh, India: On May 1, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Afzal Ansari lost his Lok Sabha membership after being sentenced to four years imprisonment in a Gangster Act case. A Lok Sabha Secretariat notification was issued regarding the same. Afzal Ansari was an MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district.
He was disqualified following the operation of Article 102(1)(e) of the Constitution of India r/w Section 8(3) of the Representation of People Act, 1951. It is pertinent to note that u/s 8(3) of the Act, “a person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for no less than two years shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a period of six years since his release.”
The Lok Sabha Secretariat’s notification reads, “No. 21/4(6)/2023/TO(B) Consequent upon his conviction by the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, M.P./M.L.A. Court, Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh in Special Trial/980/2012, Shri Afzal Ansari, Member of Lok Sabha representing the Ghazipur Parliamentary Constituency of Uttar Pradesh stands disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha from the date of his conviction i.e. 29 April, 2023 in terms of the provisions of Article 102(1)(e) of the Constitution of India read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.”
He was convicted in a kidnapping and murder case, alongside his brother and former MLA Mukhtar Ansari on April 29. The case against the BSP MP was registered under the Gangster Act after he was booked for his involvement in the murder of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Krishnanand Rai in 2005. Krishnanand Rai was an MLA from Muhammadabad and was close to Manoj Sinha, who was a minister for five years in a Union Government from 2014-2019. Afzal Ansari defeated Manoj Sinha to become the MP of Ghazipur.
The killing of Krishnanand Rai in November 2005 was one of the most sensational political murders in history. Krishnanand Rai was killed along with six of his other companions in the mayhem. Unfazed by the regime, the killers fired a total of 400 bullets. After the post-mortem, 67 bullets were discovered and extracted from the bodies of the deceased.
