“Have you heard the name of my younger brother Mukhtar Ansari?” asks Ghazipur INDIA bloc candidate and sitting MP Afzal Ansari at an election meeting. Heads nod in affirmation. The election in Ghazipur and the neighbouring constituency of Ghosi in eastern Uttar Pradesh is not about the candidates in the fray but a virtual referendum on the custodial death of five-time Mau MLA 63-year-old Mukhtar Ansari at a Banda hospital on March 28, 2024.

Five days after being released from hospital — after he complained of vomiting and had expressed fear of being poisoned — Mukhtar had been rushed to the Rani Durgavati Medical College hospital in an unconscious state from jail, which had been his home since 2005. The official version of his death was cardiac arrest. His immediate family, the large number of his supporters in Ghazipur, his ancestral home and Mau (part of Ghosi Lok Sabha seat) do not believe the official version.

Ballot battle

According to Varanasi-based journalist Ramesh Singh, the “Mukhtar factor” cannot be ignored in Ghazipur and Ghosi in particular and Purvanchal in general. Not just Muslims but a large section of his supporters believe that Mukhtar and his family have been wronged and now it is their duty to set it right through the ballot.

Mukhtar won the Assembly elections thrice from behind bars. In 2022, his son Abbas Ansari succeeded him as the Mau MLA representing the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP). He too was jailed after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) slapped a money laundering case against him. His uncle and Ghazipur candidate Afzal Ansari doesn’t miss mentioning in his election rallies that Abbas was not granted even a day’s bail to attend his father’s last rites.

Unprecedented crowds were present at Mukhtar Ansari’s funeral procession in his ancestral graveyard in Ghazipur. Violating the promulgation of CrPC 144, thousands of common people — men, women of all religions and castes, of Ghazipur and neighbouring districts had jammed the narrow streets to have a last glimpse of their leader and offer a handful of ‘mitti’ (earth) at his grave. His elder brother Afzal mentions the spontaneous outpouring of love and regard for his 10-year younger brother by the people at all his election meetings and pleads with them to send a strong message to those who murdered him in jail.

Lingering influence

On the other hand, every senior BJP leader has addressed public rallies in Mau — from PM Narendra Modi to Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP President JP Nadda, CM Yogi Adityanath and a host of others.

Here SBSP President Om Prakash Rajbhar’s son Arvind Rajbhar is the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate fighting the ghost of Mukhtar Ansari as well as the INDIA bloc candidate Rajiv Rai from the Samajwadi party.

Addressing a public rally at Ghosi, PM Narendra Modi charged the Samajwadi party and its allies of making the area the “epicentre of mafia raj”.

CM Yogi in his meeting indirectly targeted Mukhtar Ansari and his family and asserted that he has rid the area of the ‘mafia raj’.

(The writer is an independent journalist)