A preview of Mayawati's candidates.

This is from "The Statesman"

Maya makes her move

Kajari Bhattacharya
LUCKNOW, March 20: It’s the turncoats that are the most preferred members of the Bahujan Samaj Party, if the Lok Sabha candidate list for Uttar Pradesh released by party president and UP chief minister Miss Mayawati today is anything to go by.
The CM today released a list of BSP candidates for all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, including a majority of history-sheeters, mafia dons and turncoats !
Asked why she had fielded so many with a history of crime behind them, Miss Mayawati was evasive. “Ask those who are asking these questions to look into their mirrors first,” she told reporters during a Press conference at a city hotel. Out of the 80 candidates fielded from UP, over 60 of them are those who have only recently joined the party after defecting from the Samajwadi Party, the BJP and the Congress.
Mafia dons Mukhtar and Afzal Ansari, who used to be close to SP leader Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, have been fielded from Varanasi and Ghazipur respectively. History sheeter Mr Arun Shankar Shukla, better known as Anna Maharaj, is the BSP candidate from Unnao.
Mr Shafiqur Rehman Burque, who left the SP over Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and former Ayodhya poster boy Mr Kalyan Singh’s newfound friendship, has been fielded from Sambhal. Similarly, Mr SP Singh Baghel is the BSP candidate from Ferozabad, Mr Kunwar Sarvaraj Singh has bagged Aonla, and Mr Jai Prakash Rawat has been fielded from Mohanlalganj.
Others such as Mr Naresh Agarwal (candidate from Farrukhabad), joined the BSP after quitting the SP in the wake of the BSP’s win in the 2007 UP Assembly elections. Mr Sangram Singh Yadav (Ballia), Mr Dhananjay Singh (Jaunpur), Mr Kailash Nath Singh Yadav (Chandauli) and Mr Gaurishanker (Etawah) had also severed ties with the SP after the Assembly poll. Mr Shahid Siddiqui, who parted ways with the SP over the nuclear deal issue is the BSP candidate from Bijnor.
Mr DP Yadav, noted gangster and mafia don, is the BSP candidate from Badaun. Another candidate is Mr Jagdish Rana (Saharanpur), who was at the centre of a sex scandal.
Former Union minister and former Rajya Sabha member from the Congress, Mr Akhilesh Das Gupta, who joined the BSP a year back, is the party’s candidate from Lucknow.
Only seven sitting LS members of the BSP had been re-nominated. The BSP had won 19 of UP’s 80 LS seats in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.

Mayawati prominent candidate for PM: Bardhan
NEW DELHI, March 20: CPI veteran Mr AB Bardhan has again described BSP supremo Miss Mayawati as a “prominent” candidate for the post of the Prime Minister and expressed confidence that she would “never” join hands with the BJP. While maintaining that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister was “certainly a prominent candidate” for the top post, Mr Bardhan, however, said the Prime Minister would have to be chosen by consensus by the Third Front if it comes to power. Miss Mayawati said she would launch her campaign from Thiruvanathapuram tomorrow and come out with the list of party candidates for the rest of the country in four or five days. n PTI

The following is from The Indian Express

Lucknow: The Bahujan Samaj Party’s list of Lok Sabha candidates for Uttar Pradesh, announced by party president Mayawati on Friday, included some of the most notorious names of the political world as well as several turncoats who have shifted their loyalty from other parties to the BSP.

Mukhtar Ansari, prime accused in BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai’s murder, has been given the ticket from Varanasi. Dhananjay Singh, a historysheeter facing four murder charges, is the candidate from Jaunpur. The BSP candidate from Unnao, Arun Kumar Shukla ‘Anna’, is a historysheeter and one of the accused in the Guest House case of June 2, 1995 in which Mayawati was attacked by SP workers. D P Yadav, BSP candidate from Badaun, faces murder charge along with cases of extortion and kidnapping. His son, Vikas Yadav, has been convicted in the Nitish Katara murder case. Another BSP candidate, Kadir Rana (Muzaffarnagar), is involved in a murder case. Rakesh Pandey, the Ambedkarnagar candidate, is facing charges of double murder. The party candidate from Shrawasti, Rizwan Zahir, was booked under the Gangster Act.

The turncoats who have found a place in the list include Dhananjay Singh (Jaunpur), Shahid Siddiqui (Bijnor), Shafiqur Rehman (Sambhal), Akhilesh Das (Lucknow), Naresh Agarwal (Farrukhabad), Puttu Awasthi (Kaiserganj), Jagdish Singh Rana (Saharanpur), Kadir Rana (Muzaffarnagar) Rajiv Channa (Moradabad), S P Singh Baghel (Ferozabad), Devendra Singh Yadav (Etah), Kunwar Sarvaraj Singh (Awla), Arun Kumar Shukla (Unnao).

The party has also fielded wives of MLAs. They are Jaiveer Singh’s wife Rajkumari Chauhan (Aligarh), Ramveer Upadhyay’s wife Seema Upadhyay (Fatehpur Sikri), Vijay Pal’s wife Sunita Singh (Shahjahanpur), Jasmeer Ansari’s wife Kaiser Jahan (Sitapur), late Munnawar Hasan’s wife Tabassum Begum (Kairana).

The list also reflects Mayawati’s social engineering: 20 Brahmins and 14 Muslims figure among the candidates.

Mayawati has also fielded six Thakurs (up one from

five in 2004) and four Baniya candidates.



Do I have to say anything else.
60 of the 80 candidates selected by the person who aspires to be he prime minister of the country are turncoats and history sheeters.
Mayawati, it is not the opposition which is asking this quetion but the people of India.
And pray what is our judiciary doing?
How can it allow history sheeters to stand for elections when they are supposed to be barred as per the law.
They are all ganging up together to make a mockery of the people of India.
We will not tolerate this.
I understand some 40 educated people from the IIT's have combined in UP to stand for elections.
As you see from the flow of candidates from BJP and SP to BSP, there is no difference in the parties.
People should reject, SP, BSP, Congress and BJP and vote for these 40 people.

Radheshyam