CM Yogi Adityanath at an event in Mau, Thursday. ExpressIn a veiled attack on jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari and his family who have been winning elections in Mau and Ghazipur districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh for several years, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday appealed to people to distance themselves from criminals and dispel them from the system and mainstream society.
Adityanath was in Mau on Thursday to launch nearly 47 development projects worth Rs 203 crore. The programme was organised in Mau Sadar assembly constituency where Mukhtar’s son Abbas Ansari was elected MLA on a Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) ticket in recent polls.
Ansari has served as the MLA from Mau for five terms. His brother Afzal is a Bahujan Samaj Party MP from Ghazipur. Ansari’s nephew Suhaib Ali alias Mannu won the 2022 elections from Mohammadabad in Ghazipur on a Samajwadi Party ticket.
Ansari has been in jail since October 2005, after he surrendered in a communal riot case in Mau in which seven persons died. His son Abbas is wanted in a 2019 case of alleged fraud and violation of arms licence and has been absconding for over a month.
Adityanath asked the people of Mau to think about development and move ahead with a positive approach. “…will have to distance from criminals and elements of such nature. They are barriers in development. They will have to be dispelled from the system. When these mafias and criminals will be removed from mainstream society and they will be punished under the purview of law, no force will be able to stop development here. Mau will also see development like Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Lucknow,” Adityanath said.
“Mafias have committed the sin of creating obstruction in the development of this area. Mafias kept on destroying this area like termites. They grabbed the funds meant for development works and poor and used that for building their own properties and havelis (palaces),” CM said.
“The sin they have committed by grabbing properties for themselves and their families, the government is making them and their families compensate for those sins (swayam ke liye swayam ke parivar ke liye sampatti hadapne ka paap jo kiya hai aaj usi paap ki ki bharpai unse aur unke khandaan se sarkar karwa rahi hai),” he further added.
Adityanath reiterated his government’s resolve of ‘zero tolerance’ against crime and criminals, and said that criminals and corrupt elements will not be spared for creating nuisance, and obstructing development, irrespective of who they are.