The opposition parties have stepped up their demand that Ajay Mishra ‘Teni’ should be dismised as the Union minister of state for home after the Special Investigation Team’s (SIT)’s report describing the death of four farmers in Lakhimpur-Kheri as a “pre-planned conspiracy” and not a “freak accident”.
It is perhaps indicate of Teni’s influence that despite his son’s arrest – and the addition of attempt to murder charges in the chargesheet – that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has ignored the demands not just of the opposition but even the farmers.
Meanwhile, the situation of another gangster-turned-politician from Mau in Uttar Pradesh, the five-time Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA Mukhtar Ansari is in stark contrast. Embroiled in multiple cases of grave offencesm, Ansari is cooling his heels in jail for quite some time.
However, the trajectories of Ajay Mishra ‘Teni’ and Mukhtar Ansari are striking similar. They throw light on the politics of Uttar Pradesh – a quintessential cocktail of crime, communalism and corruption that has thrived for decades under political patronage.
Mukhtar Ansari formed a gang that engaged itself in ‘gang warfare’ with rivals in the 1970s, unleashing a saga of killings and counter-killings. Ajay Teni first made headlines in the 1990s when the Tikonia police station named him a “history-sheeter” in the wake of the police charging him under various sections of grave offences – punishment for causing hurt by dangerous weapons and provoking breach of peace.
Teni was also named in the FIR in the killing of 23-year-old youth Prabhat Gupta in 2000. Teni was shot at by his rivals during the hearing of the murder case, injuring him. But the shooter escaped unidentified. Be it a ‘favour’ from the powers that be or for some other reason, the police closed the “sheet” on him when the BJP was in power.
But the Allahabad high court is still hearing the case of Prabhat Gupta’s murder against him after Gupta’s family challenged the lower court’s order acquitting him in 2004. From 2004 onwards, Teni began developing proximity with the RSS-BJP leaders. Subsequently, he started making anti-minorities statements and targeted all who were opposed the BJP’s line of politics in the Lakhimpur-Kheri region, which has a sizable population of Brahmins.
Here too there are many things in common between Teni and Mukhtar Ansari. Simultaneous with developing a clout in the contract business, Mukhtar entered politics around 1995 and began challenging the “dominance” of a rival gang led by Brijesh Singh. Ansari became an MLA from Mau in 1996. Brijesh supported the election campaign of the BJP leader Krishnand Raj, who defeated Mukhtar’s brother Afzal Ansari from Mohammadabad in 2002.
Ansari subsequently consolidated the Muslim vote bank in the Mau-Ghazipur area, whereas his BJP opponents consolidated the caste-Hindu vote banks.
Advantage Ajay Teni
Teni, using the cocktail of his firepower and unbridled anti-minority rhetoric, made a space for himself in the Sangh parivar’s scheme of things. He was elected as an MLA from Kheri in 2012. And a windfall followed. When then Gujarat strongman Amit Shah was made the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, Teni became close to Shah – perhaps because of the similarity in the duo’s temperament. He bagged the BJP’s ticket for the Lakhimpur Kheri Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and won. He won again in 2019. Earlier this year, he was made the minister of state for home – the ministry that Shah heads.
After the Lakhimpur-Kheri violence and the recent SIT report, he is facing the heat. The united opposition, including the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, vociferously demanded Teni’s dismissal from the cabinet in the Lok Sabha. The farmers’ movement has also made a similar demand. In such a scenario, it did not help Teni’s case that a video of him manhandling a scribe for asking a question related to the SIT’s report went viral on Wednesday.
A screengrab from the video showing a reporter asking Ajay Mishra a question on Wednesday, December 15.
But the state police officials are tight-lipped on Teni and his son Ashish. After much persuasion, I managed to speak to a Lucknow-based senior IPS officer. “Why do you want us to get axed? You should understand the consequence of a policeman speaking against a Union home minister in whose hands lie the policeman’s career,” the officer said strictly requesting anonymity. He joked that his phone may be a target of suriveillance using the highly-intrusive Pegasus spyware. “Come over personally, we will have tea together,” the officer added.
Teni appears indispensable for the BJP in its current scheme of things. He is a Brahmin, a caste that has sizable numbers in Uttar Pradesh and forms the core vote bank of the BJP. Yogi Aditynath, a Thakur, is facing allegations of favouring his caste and has earned the wrath of a section of Brahmins after the gangster Vikas Dubey was killed in a police “encounter” in 2020. The BJP, in the run up to the elections, is working overtime to keep the Brahmins in good humour and is apparently wary of acting against Teni.
On the other hand, the tide has turned for Mukhtar Ansari. He belongs to the community that the BJP has consistently been targeting to consolidate the Hindu vote bank. In the RSS-BJP’s scheme of things, he is a symbol of “Islamic extremism”, whereas Teni symbolises “Hindutva”, which suits the ruling dispensation.
Difference between UP and Bihar
Bihar too is infamous for the nexus between criminals and politicians. If the Lalu-Rabri regime had the Siwan ‘don’ Mohammad Shahabuddin ruling the roost, Nitish Kumar’s reign saw the emergence of Anant Singh – the ‘don’ of Mokama – on the political horizon.
But, the leaders in Bihar seldom used communalism as a tool to sustain their power.
Unlike Teni, who makes anti-minority statements, Anant Singh was presented as a Robin Hood figure in the Mokama area, enjoying popularity of most of the communities including Muslims. Similarly, Shahabuddin rose against the CPI (ML) in Siwan and enjoyed the support of the upper caste landowners who were at the receiving end of the Naxalite movement.
While Anant Singh threw “iftar parties” during Ramdan, Shahabuddin – who died because of COVID-19 at a Delhi hospital – organised the Durga Puja in grand style in Siwan.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, author and professor of journalism and mass communication at Invertis University, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.