whyYou must be wondering what makes Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh so powerful that the entire establishment is rallying behind him, as if he were a priceless national asset or a victim. Here is my humble attempt to put into perspective the power and personality of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief.
I do this with the enormous help of our Lucknow correspondent Shikha Salaria, whose piece on Brijbhushan you can read Here,
The WFI chief has been accused of sexually assaulting women wrestlers, including a minor. Based on the complaint, two FIRs have been registered against him. The protesting wrestlers have demanded his removal and arrest.
On Friday, Brij Bhushan canceled a rally to be held in Ayodhya on 5 June. The BJP MP had earlier said that he had secured the support of religious leaders in Ayodhya for advocating the dilution of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) law.
You have two eras to choose from: 1993 or 2008 to appreciate the power, fame and style of the man.
Since 1993 is more dramatic, let’s look at that first.
On October 24, 1993, the CBI arrested Ahmed Mansoor and Suhail Ahmed from the Jama Masjid area of Delhi for being “active members” of the Dawood Ibrahim group. Remember, this was the year of the serial Bombay (now Mumbai) blasts. The CBI found that two of the other “shooters” of the D-Gang were being sheltered at the NTPC guest house in New Delhi’s Safdarjung development area.
It was allegedly under the patronage of the Congress party’s Kalpanath Rai, the then Union Minister of State for Food (Independent Charge). The CBI’s case was that Rai had arranged the accommodation through his personal secretary SP Rai. The same probe also “revealed” that the then BJP MP Brij Bhushan allegedly sheltered some terrorists of the same gang at his residence in New Delhi.
Initially, the CBI did not directly name him.
The investigation continued and as his name cropped up, he was named in the supplementary charge sheet. The CBI has now sought to prosecute the trio Kalpanath Rai, SP Rai and Brij Bhushan, who surrendered in Gironde in 1996. His secretary Sanjay Singh and Sabu Chacko, regional manager of the now defunct East-West Airlines, were also named. Brij Bhushan was booked under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA).
confused? Unclear? Let me try to organize it more for you. Exactly a year ago, Brij Bhushan was charged under serious criminal laws for the demolition of the Babri Masjid car valet Involved. He is now booked under TADA for allegedly “matching” with a Congress leader and harboring D-Gang terrorists with him.
And you know what, even when he was in jail – under TADA, no less, on a Dawood-linked terrorism charge – the BJP would not disown him. He was so indispensable that he gave the party ticket to his wife Ketki Devi Singh from his bastion Gonda. she won.
If the Vajpayee-Advani BJP found him such a gentleman even when he was in charge of TADA, should we be surprised that the Modi-Shah BJP holds the same view even today, three decades later?
Read also:
JayAs of July, 2008, now.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s United Progress Alliance (UPA) government is facing a vote of confidence on the Indo-US nuclear deal with the entire opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Many mischiefs happen during that vote. The ‘defection’ of a BJP MP is the rarest of the rare among the least talked about and remembered incidents. He defied the party whip and voted in favor of the UPA.
BJP has now expelled MP – Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Equally, he joined Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP). A three-time BJP MP, he now contested on an SP ticket from the pocket borough of Kaiserganj and won again.
Why Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh made this change is a more complicated story. Or, maybe it’s not so crowded, considering how easily crime and politics mix in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Among the many criminal cases he faced – 38 at last count – the most challenging was the prosecution of his old friend, accomplice and later rival Vinod Kumar “Pandit” Singh for attempting to kill him in a nearly successful shooting. Pandit Singh (the name more popularly used) was rescued by Mulayam Singh, who sent a helicopter to take him to Lucknow for treatment. But you know what? The head of our wrestling federation has never faced a proper trial, forget being convicted. Why?
Because none of the prosecution witnesses appeared in the court. Not even, hold your breath, the victim who almost got killed, Pandit Singh himself. He was a Mulayam loyalist and a former minister in his cabinet. Apparently, Mulayam had “mediated” to broker some kind of settlement between the two Rajput heavyweight leaders. Probably Brij Bhushan had to pay the price of that vote and defection.
If this shows how shrewd he is, the fact that he has now easily won on an SP ticket, despite being a lifelong BJP man, underlines his popularity in that area. Surprisingly, by the next election – 2014, before the Modi-Shah BJP – he was re-inducted into the BJP, all indiscretions forgiven? He has now been a BJP MP twice more.
What’s the gist of the story: That ever holier than AAP, “Only Muslims and Yadavs give shelter to criminals in Uttar Pradesh” BJP didn’t expel Brij Bhushan when he was accused of attempt to murder.
It removed him only when he defied the party whip and voted for the UPA. Of course, only to hug her again later.
SIng has been a six-time Member of Parliament—five times as a member of the BJP and once as a member of the SP.
When you read this, you will find echoes of some of the earlier episodes of ThePrint’s ‘Cut the Clutter’ that I have done on this. bahubali, Grandpa Or the gangsters of eastern Uttar Pradesh – from Atiq Ahmed to Mukhtar Ansari, from Brijesh Singh to Harishankar Tiwari. It is a political area.
It also reminds us of the lesson we learned from those episodes: that the crime-politics-mafia nexus is an integral part of eastern UP politics. You cannot blame any particular religion or caste for this. They are all in this together. Or, as the saying goes, ‘Everyone naked in this hamam‘ (Everyone is naked in this bathhouse).
Now Brijbhushan’s record may not come close to these ‘illustrious’ men, but he has 38 cases registered against him on various charges including attempt to murder. Apart from TADA, he has also been booked under the UP Goondas Control Act and the UP Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act. He has been acquitted in most of the cases, and some of the trials may be over forever.
During a media interview, the BJP MP himself once revealed that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was suspected to be behind the alleged ‘accident’ in 2004 that led to the death of Ghanshyam Shukla, BJP’s candidate for the Lok Sabha elections Was. That year Gonda, as Brijbhushan was deprived of his own stronghold. Many suspected that it was not an accident, but a political assassination.
Sure enough, the controversy soon fizzled out.
Apart from this, 37 other cases also got away with time. As we say in the Hindi heartland, ‘Saiyan Bhai Kotwal, so what to fear? (My lover is Pradhan, so why should I be afraid?)’.
I will also quote for you from an interview which he gave to a famous Hindi media portal lallantop On February 21, 2022. In it he said, and I quote, “There has been one murder by my hand in my life. whatever people say, i committed a murder (In my lifetime there has been one murder by my hands. Let people say what they want, but I have committed one murder.)
Now, he said that the murder took place in 1991 during a fight at a panchayat meeting and the group he was supporting was fired upon from the other side. He got involved in the gunfight and a person from the other side (Ravindra Singh), who was also a local goon, was killed. Now what happened to that case? Has anyone been tried? Do not ask such a question, because in the culture of Eastern UP, especially when it comes to bahubaliNo such rule applies.
You can read more details in Shikha’s article. It also has details of efforts being made to talk to him. We will update this article as soon as he responds.
The same BJP whose ministers would cheer even a bronze medalist at the Commonwealth Games – which is several notches below Asian Games standards – will not speak up for wrestlers who win medals at the Olympics. In fact, it has worked very hard to discredit and undermine them.
Why, is a mystery. Politically, Brijbhushan is an asset but within its limited political geography. Not so important to have so much reputation at stake.
Unless you see it as part of a pattern. Till now we have come to know that this is the way of BJP that never back down, never look close to failure, never leave your near and dear ones.
that’s exactly how it was played Case Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister and Lok Sabha MP from Lakhimpur Kheri, UP, Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni. In the case of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh also a similar view is coming out.