Mafia–don–turned politician, Atiq Ahmad, who has been a five–term MLA in Uttar Pradesh and Lok Sabha MP from Phulpur, may now be lodged in jail in Gujarat, but his shadow looms large on the poll narrative in the area in the form of a government–run bulldozer.
From 1989 to 2017, either he or his kin have contested the polls in the State, especially in and around Prayagraj. This time, however, its Mr. Ahmad’s demolished property which is playing its role in the polls, as a symbol of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government’s crackdown on “Bahubalis” or strongmen like Mr. Ahmad and Mukhtar Ansari who had dominated the politics and criminal landscape of the area for long starting from the late 1980s and only tapering off well into the 2000s.
The word “bulldozer” (used to demolish properties related to Mr. Ahmad and even Mr. Ansari’s Ghazal Hotel in Ghazipur) has become a euphemism deployed by the BJP campaign to denote ‘suraksha’ (safety) and law and order.
