SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar disowns party MLA Abbas Ansari after arrest, calls him SP leader

VARANASI: Day after jailed mafia don Mukhtar Ansari’s son and MLA from Mau Sadar seat, Abbas Ansari, was taken into custody by Enforcement Directorate, the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar on Sunday disowned him and said, “Abbas is Samajwadi Party leader, who won on SBSP ticket.”
Talking to reporters in Mau on Sunday, Rajbhar said, “Definitely, Abbas contested on my party’s symbol. But he was among those 12 SP candidates, who contested on SBSP tickets in the 2022 Assembly polls. He is an SP leader.”
On being asked whether he will oust Abbas from SBSP, Rajbhar said, “Why should I oust him? It’s the job of the Election Commission.” Rajbhar kept ducking queries whether Abbas is in SBSP by reiterating that the latter had only contested on his party’s ticket.
The SBSP had contested the 2022 Assembly election as an alliance partner of SP. Abbas had contested from Mau seat, where his father had won elections since 1996, on an SBSP ticket while Mukhtar’s elder brother and former MLA Shibgatullah Ansari’s son Suhaib Ansari Mannu had contested on an SP ticket from Mohammadabad seat in Ghazipur district. They both won.
After winning the Assembly election, problems for Abbas had started increasing when Lucknow’s special MP-MLA court in August declared him an absconder in a case in which he is accused of transferring an arms licence from UP to New Delhi without informing the Lucknow Police and obtaining many weapons on one licence. Despite massive raids across the state, cops could not succeed in arresting him. On October 19, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Abbas in the arms licence case and directed the Uttar Pradesh government not to take any coercive steps against him till further orders.
After this, Abbas reached Saifai on October 20 to meet SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to pay tributes to the late Mulayam Singh Yadav. On October 21, Abbas along with his brother and uncle appeared before the MP-MLA court of Mau district and he was granted bail in two cases of violation of model code of conduct lodged during the 2022 Assembly polls.
The ED had arrested Abbas in connection with a money laundering case on Friday and its Allahabad unit on Saturday got a seven-day police remand.