NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha secretariat on Monday issued a notification announcing the disqualification of Afzal Ansari from the House following his conviction.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) lawmaker, who represented Ghazipur in the Lok Sabha. was convicted and handed out a four-year jail term in a kidnapping and murder case by a special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur. His younger brother, gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari, was sentenced to 10 years in connection with the same case registered under the UP Gangsters Act in 2007.
“Consequent upon his conviction…Afzal Ansari, Member of Lok Sabha representing the Ghazipur Parliamentary Constituency of Uttar Pradesh, stands disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha from the date of his conviction i.e. 29 April, 2023 in terms of the provisions of Article 102(1)(e) of the Constitution of India read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951,” the notification issued by the secretariat read.
Ansari is the second Lok Sabha MP to be disqualified in recent months. In April, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi was disqualified after being convicted in a defamation case and sentenced to 2- years in jail.
The case under the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act against the Ansari brothers in which Afzal Ansari was convicted was registered In connection with the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Krishnanand Rai and six others in Bhawarkol area of Ghazipur in November 2005. The cases were registered at the Mohammadabad police station in 2007.
This was the first case in which Afzal Ansari has been convicted. His brother, Mukhtar Ansari has been convicted in four cases so far.
Apart from Ansari, his brothers have also been booked under the UP Gangsters Act in connection with the murder of the then MLA from Ghazipur, Krishnanad Rai, on November 29, 2005 along with the kidnapping and murder of Varanasi-based trader Nand Kishore Rungta in 1997.