Rise and fall of Mukhtar Ansari: The don’s long shadow on UP politics over decades

Mukhtar Ansari, the gangster-turned-politician, who always insisted to be addressed as Mokhtar (His identity proof documents carry his name as Mokhtar), had been a key player not only in the underworld but also politics of eastern UP for over 30 years irrespective of the party in power.

A measure of his political clout was reflected by the fact that the don himselfnever lost any election in his traditional Mau Sadar Assembly seat since he started contesting the polls from 1996.

He also ensured victory of his elder brothers — Afzal Ansari and Sibgatullah Ansari — and also his son Abbas and nephew Suhaib alias Mannu in various Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, barring a couple of electoral reverses faced by Afzal and Sibgatullah.

A native of Mohammadabad in Ghazipur, a eastern UP district bordering Varanasi and Mau and Azamgarh districts, Mukhtar’s underworld footprint was spread over large swathes across UP, Bihar, Punjab, Delhi and Haryana.

He had formidable influence in the Muslim-dominated belts of Ghazipur, Varanasi, Chandauli, Mau, Azamgarh and Ballia districts, which play a deciding factor in the elections to a majority of the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in these districts. This was mainly the reason why two major UP parties – the Samajwadi Party and the BSP – never hesitated to join hands with Mukhtar while letting him freely run his empire while in power in lieu of his support in these districts.

Mukhtar made his electoral debut in the 1996 Lok Sabha polls when the BSP fielded him as its candidate against Congress heavyweight Kalpnath Rai from the Ghosi seat in Mau district. Though he lost the election, the BSP repeated him in the Assembly election in the same year from Mau Sadar which he won. He then went on to win