"Criminals should be weeded out of the political system. All parties should immediately begin the process to rid them of anti-social elements. Soon I will initiate this in my own party."

-Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party chief
Mulayam Singh Yadav at a public meeting in Mainpuri on October 7.

ROGUES GALLERY

Less than 24 hours after the Mulayam Singh Yadav harangue, Samajwadi Party workers in Ghazipur were all agog, welcoming a new member into their fold. He was neither a cine star nor a socialite with a cause though the fanfare would have warranted one. He was Haider Ali Khan a.k.a Tiger, a local criminal with about half-a-dozen cases lodged against him.

In the Uttar Pradesh assembly where Mulayam is the leader of the house, Tigers are the rule rather than the exception. A confidential police document in the possession of India Today reveals that more than 50 per cent of the MLAs in the state are registered in the police files as history-sheeters, mafia dons, smugglers, murderers and kidnappers. Of the 403 legislators, 207 have criminal records. In fact, crime has become the lowest common denominator in the murky world of state politics. The largest party in the assembly also leads with the largest contingent of criminals. According to the records, the SP has 84 criminal MLAs, followed by the BSP with 54, the BJP with 41 and the Congress and the Lok Dal with seven MLAs each.

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MUKHTAR ANSARI: Once a TADA detainee, the Independent MLA from Mau has 26 cases against him, including murder and kidnapping. AMARMANI TRIPATHI: Courted infamy for his alleged involvement in the Madhumita Shukla murder. Has 25 other cases, including murder. AKHILESH SINGH: The MLA from Rae Bareli district has 30 cases, including murder, against him but claims he is framed. RAGHURAJ P. SINGH: The Independent MLA from Pratapgarh, Raja Bhaiyya was detained under POTA. Has over 30 cases lodged against him.

It is easy to understand why law breakers are turning out in large numbers to become lawmakers and why political parties have no qualms in embracing them. A don pumps in hard cash into his constituency, brings with him enough manpower to campaign and the muscle power to intimidate the opponent or even the voter. The long drawn-out political campaign based on ideology, values and principles has become a thing of the past in the Hindi heartland.

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NEW RECRUIT: Haider Ali Khan, a local goon, has joined the SP

"These MLAs with criminal records are an invisible force behind the continuance of every government in Uttar Pradesh. Remove them from the ruling combination and it will not survive," says a police officer. In Uttar Pradesh politics where governments come and go, they are the constants. Hari Shankar Tewari is an accused in 30 cases but has survived the vicissitudes of politics. He is probably the only MLA who has been a minister for the past seven years in various cabinets, be it of Kalyan Singh, Rajnath Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta (all BJP), Mayawati (BSP) or Mulayam.

Food and Civil Supplies Minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya allegedly has 30 cases lodged against him. Once jailed under POTA by Mayawati, he has now, along with Tewari, become the caste mascot of the Samajwadi Party. While Raja Bhaiyya is the symbol of "Kshatriya Samman", Tewari is the "Brahmin Samrat". Together they tour constituencies, garnering the support of Thakurs and Brahmins. Caste politics of the cow belt is subsuming every effort to decriminalise the system. Says BJP spokesperson Hridaya Narain Dixit: "Though every political party is to be blamed for this dangerous trend, the Congress is primarily responsible for criminalising politics, and the Samajwadi Party for politicising the criminals."

SAMAJWADI PARTY

CRIMINAL MLAs 84 Notorious TOP 5 M L A DISTRICT CASES O.P. Gupta Sitapur 70 V.K. Mishra Ravi Das Nagar 35 O.P. Singh Ghazipur 27 Kamlesh Pathak Kanpur 26 D.P. Yadav Azamgarh 18

The blame game will not end but the Samajwadi Party started the trend of fielding criminals in the name of "social justice" when it nominated bandit queen Phoolan Devi as its candidate in Mirzapur in 1996. The BJP, meanwhile, fielded dacoit Tehsildar Singh to "reform a wayward person". The BSP took the cue and fielded Mukhtar Ansari, the dreaded criminal in the Varanasi-Ghazipur region, as its much-hyped candidate. Their clout was such that few dared to say that they had blood on their hands.

BSP

CRIMINAL MLAs 53 Notorious TOP 5 M L A DISTRICT CASES M. Safeer Fatehpur 30 A.M. Tripathi Maharganj 26 Mehboob Ali J.P. Nagar 18 Ghoora Ram Balia 17 R. Bhuval Nishad GKP 15

For the Grand Old Party of India, the politicisation of criminals began much earlier. One of Sanjay Gandhi's legacies that the Congress would rather forget is the group of rogues that he surrounded himself with in the late '70s. From the district rungs to the state level, his writ ran through them. A decade later when the other Gandhi, Rajiv, was the Mr Clean of Indian politics, their presence became stronger: in the 1984 assembly elections when there were 35 criminal MLAs in the house, 18 of them were from the Congress. That year the Congress opened the doors of its party office to mafia don Tewari who contested from jail-and won. When elections had to be won by hook or crook, the Congress blatantly sought the help of mafia dons. The 1988 Allahabad by-election saw chief minister Bir Bahadur Singh getting Bhukkhal Maharaj, a history-sheeter, released from jail to campaign for the party.

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CASE HISTORY: Badshah Singh of the BJP faces 16 charges

By 1989, it was an open and dirty game with parties fighting to get these gun-toting money bags. There was not even a veneer of scruples left as smugglers, kidnappers and looters made their way to politics. It was the time when the dons of Uttar Pradesh's wild west, D.P. Yadav and Madan Bhaiyya, were on the power list of the Mulayam-led Samajwadi Janata Party instead of in police custody.

Little wonder that in the 1989 assembly elections, there were 50 tainted MLAs. The numbers grew with the growing instability in Uttar Pradesh politics. In the 1991 elections, there were 133 criminal MLAs-more than a twofold increase over 1989-of which a maximum of 40 were from the BJP. The saffronites were riding the Ram Rajya wave but they did not desist from fielding some Ravanas of their own. The other parties were not far behind-the Janata Dal had 34 criminal politicians; Samajwadi Party 26; the Congress 19 and the BSP seven.

BJP

CRIMINAL MLAs 41 Notorious TOP 5 M L A DISTRICT CASES Badshah Singh Hamirpur 16 R.P. Chaudhari Basti 14 P.S. Bundela Lalitpur 12 S.K. Singh Moradabad 11 Ghanshyam Shukla Gonda 11

In the next two assembly polls in 1993 and 1996, cleansing the state politics was on top of every manifesto. Like Mulayam at Mainpuri this year, every politician swore by decriminalisation of politics at every rally. When the election results came in, the number of tainted legislators was 148 and 152. True, there have been perfunctory efforts by political parties, the Election Commission and even the Supreme Court to stem the rot in the system. But in the power play of Uttar Pradesh, that had come to naught.

CONGRESS

CRIMINAL MLAs 7 Notorious TOP 5 M L A DISTRICT CASES P. Mathur Mathura 4 S. Chowdhary Saharanpur 4 Pramod Tewari Pratapgarh 3 Jagdambika Pal Basti 2 Ajay Kapoor Kanpur 2

The year 1997. Mayawati pulled the rug from under the Kalyan Singh government. In a desperate bid to stay in power, Kalyan got the support of 38 MLAs, of whom 18 were criminals, by promising them ministerial posts. When Tewari, the mafia don from Gorakhpur, was sworn in as minister, he was alleged to have more than 25 criminal cases against him, of which nine were of murder, 10 of attempt to murder and three each of dacoity and kidnapping. From then on Tiwari became de jour in the Cabinet and so did the practice of lawbreakers becoming ministers. Other honourable ministers facing criminal charges were Mandaleshwar Singh with eight cases, Shyam Sunder Sharma, an accused in 18 cases of rioting, dacoity and kidnapping, and Raja Bhaiyya.

The recent governments in the state have all survived on the strength of the criminal politicians. But with 207 legislators with criminal records-an all-time high-the present Uttar Pradesh Assembly has become a cause for concern. "If these MLAs leave their political affiliations and form their own outfit, the state can certainly have the first bizarre government comprised only of criminals," says a senior police officer. It is not an apocalyptic nightmare or a vague hypothesis. As Uttar Pradesh seems to teeter on the edge, this is a very real fear.

OTHERS

CRIMINAL MLAs 21 Notorious TOP 5 M L A DISTRICT CASES Madan Bhaiyya Baghpat 36 Hari S. Tewari GKP 30 Akhilesh Singh Rae Bareli 30 Vijay Singh Farrukhabad 28 Mukhtar Ansari Mau 26

Although the sanctuary houses only 15 donkeys, as many as 3,000 of them from in and around Sagroli attend its bi-annual vaccination camp. Sponsored by Hyderabad Blue Cross, a voluntary organisation dedicated to animal care, donkeys are examined, vaccinated, dewormed and treated for various ailments. The two caretakers, Ram and Suresh, clean and bandage the animals' wounds every day. Pointing to a frail donkey named Asha, Ram says, "She was even thinner when she came to us." Every Sunday a vet from Nanded, the nearest town, pays the donkeys a visit.

The Shahs were regular visitors to Dharma, living in the cottage at the sanctuary that serves as a guesthouse, before Bonny succumbed to cancer earlier this year. "We will continue the good work she started," says Pramod Deshmukh, a Sagroli resident and main trustee of the sanctuary. But funds are hard to come by as few understand the need for a donkey sanctuary when there is not enough money for abandoned children and abused women. However, it is never too soon to cultivate a compassion for animals.

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