History-sheeters on list of candidates for party of ‘weak’

THE NAME of the party, founded last summer to represent the Nishad (boatmen) caste group in eastern UP, is Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (NISHAD), which can be loosely translate as “Weak Indian Exploited Our Common Party”.

But among its “best candidates” are a bunch of historysheeters and musclemen.

These include former MP Dhananjay Singh, who was recently arrested along with his wife in connection with the murder of their domestic help in Delhi, Gyanpur MLA Vijay Mishra, who figures in several cases, including one related to a 2010 attack on former BSP minister Nand Gopal Gupta “Nandi” in which The Indian Express reporter Vijay Pratap Singh was killed.

The Nishad party is the latest entrant in the politics of Purvanchal, that seems to be following the tried-and-tested formula of caste-based mobilisation with muscle power to win elections.

While the SP has been represented by a number of musclemen in the region in the past, the BSP has also tried to combine its Dalit support base with the power of muscle and money in the region. The induction of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari and his family into the BSP in the 1990s as well as last month is an example.

Sanjay Kumar Nishad, the founder-president of the party, was frank about it. “Our supporters are weak and exploited. People in power can take their votes by threatening them. If we do not have a powerful candidate who can get votes, our votes will continue to be robbed,” said Nishad, a former electrohomeopathy doctor from Gorakhpur. “Our caste has the numbers to influence results on 122 seats. We have to consolidate them. They have been cheated by parties like SP and BSP.”

His son Sarvan, a civil engineer-turned-politician, named half-a-dozen party candidates facing criminal cases and said they are the party's “strongest”.

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