Mr Chief Minister, we expect far better than this from you

Sanjay Bhatnagar

Lucknow: Mr Chief Minister, in the politics, it is said that the public memory is short but then four years is not such a long time that one can forget how you were put on a very high pedestal when you had denied entry of mafia of western Uttar Pradesh D P Yadav into the party.

I know for sure that even you were taken aback by the euphoria in 2012 assembly polls when lots of love and affection was showered on you with a striking ray of hope that a well-meaning generation in the politics has arrived. But it was not to be.

In precisely four years, you are open to so many questions from the young generation about inducting another Mafiosi Mukhtar Ansari, this time from eastern UP, in the Samajwadi Party. Even if, you are like a game of chess-one wrong move and you are gone.

Mr Chief Minister, nobody would believe that you were opposed to your own party on the decision to merge Quami Ekta Dal, comprised of two members Mukhtar and his brother Afzal, in the SP. It was you only (not others in your party) whom everyone looked up to when your party was elected to power with overwhelming majority in 2012.

The question will revisit you several times till the polling in 2017 assembly elections is over, leaving you at pains to justify your position. Many like me would not like you to lose the tag of ‘youth icon’ which you must have cherished for all these years but, for one decision and a question why?

Mr Chief Minister, you have unnecessarily given opposition an issue which may prevail upon all the developmental works you initiated and executed with elan.

According to party insiders, you and some others in the party were opposed to the move but, seniors prevailed upon you and allowed Mukhtar Ansari to join.

What is intriguing, he is not an unknown criminal and, so, whatever decision it has taken, has been taken with full knowledge of facts and circumstances. Mukhtar is already in jail on a murder charge and his five-time MLA brother Afzal Ansari from the Mohammadabad is also not a saint. Then it is also fresh in the memory how you had dismissed the presence of noted mafia Atiq Ahmad in Allahabad.

Is it your helplessness or desperation? It will also be put to grind of the time but the time is still left for you. Still months to go for the polls and you have ample time to prove yourself as far as this decision is concerned.