With panchayat polls on the cards, incidents related to rivalries on the rise

LUCKNOW : The sensational murders of two brothers, Anil Mishra, husband of a village pradhan, and Surendra Mishra in an Ambedkarnagar village on Monday night is related to upcoming panchayat poll rivalry, police investigations have found.

The December 20 murder of a prominent businessman and village head’s husband Sujeet Pandey in Lucknow’s Mohanlalganj was also related to panchayat poll rivalry.

The incidents are an indicator to a rising trend of polllinked violence.

Records suggest that as many as 15 people were murdered while 23 others were injured in incidents linked with upcoming panchayat polls in past 10 months.

“Like in the past, the tussle over panchayat poll is getting murkier with electoral exercise in 59,163 village panchayats (according to 2015 data) coming closer,” said political expert and women activist Madhu Garg.

In the Ambedkarnagar incident, the police said the two brothers were gunned down by their political rival Anil Singh and his aides while they were returning after making complaint about the inclusion of the latter’s name in village’s voter list wrongfully.

Similarly, the police investigation in the Lucknow murder revealed that one Madhukar Yadav had hatched the entire conspiracy as he wanted to contest for the post the chairman of Mohanlalganj Nagar Panchayt and he wanted to get rid of Sujeet Pandey, his main opponent.

Police experts said this trend of attack, murder, group clash, caste and communal politics was witnessed all across the rural interiors of the state during panchayat polls for many decades.

Retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Umesh Kumar Singh said the trend had gradually increased with time due to availability of more funds for village pradhans and caste and communal politics. He also said he had witnessed many such incidents where rivals were attacked, murdered or framed in false criminal cases so that a candidate could win the panchayat polls.

UP additional director general (law and order) Prashant Kumar said the police officers in districts had been directed to keep a close watch on the incidents related to panchayat poll rivalries to develop a multipronged strategy to mitigate this problem.

He said DGP HC Awasthy has already issued a detailed circular on tackling such crimes in August, 2020.