‘Mafioso’ Brijesh Singh wins MLC election in temple town
Jailed underworld don Brijesh Singh won the Varanasi-Bhadohi-Chandauli legislative council seat on Sunday, defeating the Samajwadi Party’s Meena Singh by 1,955 votes. The victory marks Singh’s first direct entry into active politics though his family members have won elections before.
The Varanasi-Bhadohi-Chandauli legislative council (local body) seat was among the 28 seats for which elections were held across the state on March 3. Eight others, all of them of the ruling Samajwadi Party, were elected unopposed before the poll.
Brijesh Singh, considered to be a rival of another alleged criminal-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, polled 3,038 votes while Meena Singh got 1,083 votes. Meena Singh is the sister of Manoj Kumar Singh, the Samajwadi Party MLA from Saidraja constituency in Chandauli district. Manoj Kumar Singh had defeated Brijesh in the 2012 assembly polls from Saidraja.
Brijesh Singh’s victory ensured the seat stayed in the family as his wife Annapurna Singh was the MLC prior to the poll. Before her, Brijesh Singh’s brother Udaynath Singh alias Chulbul Singh represented the seat twice. He had contested on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket.
The BJP didn’t field a candidate this time and gave no reason for staying away from the poll fray in the PM’s constituency. The Samajwadi Party’s Ramlali Mishra won the adjoining Mirzapur seat.
Brijesh had evaded the police for nearly two decades. He was arrested in Odisha in 2008, laying to rest rumours that he was dead.
Overall, the Samajwadi Party has bagged 31 of the 36 local bodies’ seats in the legislative council this time. The SP now has obtained a majority in the 100-seat upper house of the state legislature. The BSP got two and the Congress one, while the remaining two were bagged by independent candidates.
The Election Commission had issued a notification on February 8 for polling to 35 seats.
With Sunday’s results, the break up of party-wise strength in the Upper House is: SP-58, BSP-16, Cong-2, BJP-7, Teachers Group-5, Independents-6, RLD-1 and Vacant-5.