LUCKNOW: Don-turned-politician Dhananjay Singh filed his nomination on a Janata Dal (United) ticket from Malhani constituency in Jaunpur district on Wednesday. A wanted criminal with at least 37 cases against him and a Rs 25,000 bounty on his head, the former MP went underground for a year after he was accused of orchestrating the murder of another gangster, Ajit Singh, in Lucknow on January 6 last year.
After Lucknow Police failed to arrest Dhananjay for over a year, the murder case was handed over to the Special Task Force (STF) in January this year. STF’s swift volte-face on Singh’s role in the murder, bolstered his electoral ambition to contest from Malhani, which will go to polls in the last phase on March 7. In 2017, Dhananjay Singh had contested from the same seat on a Nishad Party ticket, but lost.