Tainted UP MLAs back in poll fray

WANTED WANT VOTE: Maurya (L) and Ali were exposed for hawala and drug links.

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Varanasi/New Delhi: Would politicians caught taking bribes on camera get a chance to stand for elections again? The answer, sadly, is yes.

Tainted Uttar Pradesh ministers Mehboob Ali and Anil Kumar Maurya - whose criminal background was exposed in a CNN-IBN-DIG Investigation last year - are back in the fray in the Assembly elections.

While Maurya is campaigning in full steam to retain the Rajgrah assembly seat for the BSP, former minister Mehboob Ali is wooing the masses for his Amroha seat.

“I want water for my area – both drinking water and for agricultural purposes. That’s my only aim,” says Maurya.

Ali who had to resign last year after being a CNN-IBN-DIG investigation exposed his drug trafficking links is hoping to come back to power this time on a Samajwadi Party ticket.

Ali sought Rs 20 lakh to get a drug consignment ferried from Lucknow to Delhi. Caught on camera accepting cash to carry the narcotics in his official car, Ali had to resign from Mulayam Singh's cabinet.

Back then, Samajwadi Party leaders had condemned Ali in strongest of words. “I can assure you that people of the state and country at large will not be disappointed by the action,” SP leader Amar Singh said.

But a year later, all is forgotten and Mehboob Ali is back in business and so is Anil Kumar Maurya who – in the same investigation - admitted to being a hawala operator.

“I know Hawala trade. You give Rs 2.5 cr in Delhi and we give you the same amount here,” he had admitted.

But a year later, Maurya’s tainted history has clearly been forgotten. “It doesn’t make a difference. You keep on trying and it won’t matter,” says Maurya today.

While Maurya was more candid, Ali evaded camera and let his son do the talking. “Inshallah! He stands a 100 per cent stand of winning the elections,” says Ali’s son Pervez.

Clearly criminal pasts have not stopped the respective parties from giving tickets to the tainted ministers – another indication of the rot that has set into UP’s politics.

(With Parul Malik and Utpal Pathak)