The Congress has fielded in the Uttar Pradesh elections the sister of the jailed widow of the henchman of slain gangster Vikas Dubey, alleging that the bereaved wife had been framed and that she was paying the price of being a Brahmin in Yogi Adityanath’s rule.
Neha Tiwari, the sister of Khushi Dubey who has been in jail for 18 months, will contest from Kanpur’s Kalyanpur, a seat held by the BJP.
Khushi was the wife of Amar Dubey, who was killed in a police encounter in Hamirpur on July 8, 2020, when the cops had gone to nab him in connection with an ambush in which eight personnel had died at Bikru village on July 3 during an attempt to arrest his boss Vikas.
Khushi is in jail as an undertrial on the charges of murder, loot and conspiracy in connection with the July 3, 2020, encounter. Her family and Opposition parties say she is innocent and many politicians had promised to take up her cause before the Congress went ahead and gave a poll ticket to her family.
While earlier Khushi’s mother Gayatri Tiwari’s name had been announced by the Congress as a candidate, her elder daughter Neha replaced her and filed her nomination papers on Tuesday. Congress sources said Gayatri’s name was missing from the voters’ list and that is why Neha was fielded at the eleventh hour.
Neha Sharma, the district magistrate of Kanpur, said: “Gayatri’s name was not on the voters’ list in 2017 (Assembly elections) and 2019 (Lok Sabha polls).”
Amar and Khushi had got married on June 30, 2020. She landed in jail within eight days for her alleged involvement in the July 3 ambush. Allahabad High Court refused to grant her bail on July 17, 2021.
Gayatri maintains that Khushi didn’t know Amar’s criminal antecedents.
“We didn’t want her to marry Amar but it happened at gunpoint. Khushi didn’t know anything about Vikas and Amar’s criminal activities. The police have no evidence against her but she is languishing in jail,” Gayatri iterated on Wednesday.
She had told the media last week that she wanted to acquire the political heft to prove that her daughter was innocent and that Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had agreed to help her. The Congress has fielded several alleged victims of the Adityanath government.
Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party president, had said last month that the plight of Khushi symbolised the Adityanath government’s vindictive behaviour towards Brahmins and women.
The encounter killings of Vikas and four of his aides after they had surrendered and also the death of Amar and the imprisonment of Khushi had sparked allegations of Brahmins being targeted. The community accuses chief minister Adityanath of being partial towards his castemen, Thakurs, to the detriment of others.
Satish Chandra Mishra, Bahujan Samaj Party general secretary, had met Khushi’s parents in July 2021 and said he would provide her legal assistance. “She is being targeted just because she is a Brahmin. We are convinced she is innocent. My legal team will fight Khushi’s case,” Mishra had said.
However, nothing substantial is known to have been done by the BSP.
“We know it is a long battle as dislodging the BJP government is the only option left before the Brahmins of Uttar Pradesh for their own safety. My sister is unwell and innocent but she is in jail. She will emerge victorious soon,” said Neha, mother of two children. Her husband died in a road accident three years ago.
Pramod Krishnam, Congress leader and mahant of the Kalki Dham Ashram in Sambhal, told reporters in Kanpur: “We are fighting a dharm yuddh (holy war) in Kalyanpur. The anti-religious and anti-people government killed the accused of the Bikru incident in fake encounters when they were already in police custody. Priyanka has shown compassion for the family of Khushi and I appeal to all the Opposition parties to withdraw their candidates and support Neha in the election.”
The BJP’s Nilima Katiyar won the Kalyanpur seat in 2017 by 24,000 votes against the Samajwadi Party’s Satish Nigam.
Kalyanpur will vote in the third phase on February 20.