LUCKNOW: The ‘Badka Phatak’ (big gate) as locals used to call it — the ancestral house of gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari in Ghazipur — used to play a crucial role in deciding the outcome of over half a dozen Lok Sabha seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh.There was a perception that anyone contesting on a seat falling under his fiefdom would not get victory without visiting ‘Badka Phatak’ and taking the blessings of Ansari.There was a rush of non-BJP political players to ‘Badka Phatak’ to express anguish over the death of the five-time former MLA and sympathise with his bereaved family, signifying his political significance. The top brass of the SP, BSP and Congress took to social media raising doubts over the cause of Mukhtar’s death and demanded a probe.The expression of concern for the dead gangster, who once was synonymous with terror in Purvanchal with over 60 criminal cases lodged against him, is attributed to his hold over Muslim votes for in Ghazipur, Mau, Jaunpur, Azamgarh, Varanasi and Chandauli districts, where Muslims constitute around 20% of the voters.Political experts claim that to alter the political equations in the districts of his fiefdom, a letter written by the gangster used to be sufficient.While the Opposition would try to capitalise over his death by raising the doubts to draw the Muslim voters, the BJP would play diagonally opposite by underscoring the destruction of his empire of crime under the present dispensation.Political experts claim that Mukhtar used to have his influence over the elections right from a village head to the Lok Sabha candidate. His brother Afzal Ansari, who won the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Ghazipur on a BSP ticket, is now contesting as a SP candidate. His son Abbas Ansari won the Mau (Sadar) assembly seat on the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party ticket but as an SP candidate in 2022 while his nephew Suhaib Ansari is the SP MLA from Mohammadabad in Ghazipur.
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