In Ghazipur seat, Mukhtar Ansari’s death remains a factor as brother contests, shadowed by ‘disqualification’

At 8.30 pm on a Wednesday, a crowd comprising a couple of hundred people, most of them Muslims, has gathered at M H Inter College in Ghazipur city for a “nukkad sabha” of Samajwadi Party Lok Sabha candidate and MP Afzal Ansari. The talk in the crowd revolves around the death of Afzal’s brother and gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari in Banda prison on March 28.

Calling Mukhtar’s death “unnatural”, Mohammad Amir (30), a small business owner, says it is among the election issues in the Ghazipur seat, which will vote in the last phase, on June 1. “Ten days before he died, he told a court that he was being given poison in jail. Why wasn’t he shifted to a better hospital? Why was he shifted straight back to jail?” says Amir, adding that questions remain unanswered.

At 9 pm, Afzal arrives in a small fleet of cars, weaving their way through narrow lanes, and heads straight to the stage where SP leaders are waiting for him along with those of ally Congress.

Nearly an hour into his speech, Afzal brings up Mukhtar’s death. “You saw recently kis berehmi ke saath jail mein in zalimon ne usko zehar diya (they poisoned him mercilessly in jail). And it was passed off as a heart attack… They stopped people from honouring his grave. There is no such law allowing this. Today, the time has come to punish these oppressors.”

However, Afzal adds, he wants this not just due to his personal grievance, “but for the fraud they have pulled on the country”. “Inflation and unemployment have gone up,” he says, amid slogans of “Takht badal do, taaj badal do. Beimani ka raaj badal do (Topple the ruler, overthrow the crown. Change this dishonest government)”.

Two months after his death, Mukhtar remains a divisive, if unavoidable, figure in Ghazipur –