Mukhtar Ansari Biography: Age, Height, Education, Personal Life, Family, Political Career and Cause of Death

Mukhtar Ansari, born on 30 June 1963 and passing away on 28 March 2024, was a prominent Indian politician with a criminal record.

He served as a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly representing the Mau constituency on five separate occasions, two of which were under the Bahujan Samaj Party ticket.

Background and Family

Mukhtar Ansari’s grandfather on his father’s side was Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, a former president of the Indian National Congress.

On his mother’s side, his grandfather was Mohammad Usman, a brigadier in the Indian Army who never married and remained single throughout his life.

The paternal lineage of Mukhtar Ansari can be traced back to Abdullah Ansari, a sufi saint from Herat.

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Early Life

In the early 1970s, the government initiated various development projects in the Poorvanchal area, leading to the emergence of organized gangs vying for contracts.

Mukhtar Ansari was reportedly associated with the Makhanu Singh gang initially.

By the 1980s, clashes between this gang and Sahib Singh’s gang over a piece of land in Saidpur resulted in a series of violent confrontations.

Brijesh Singh, an alleged member of Sahib Singh’s gang, later established his own gang and seized control of Ghazipur’s contract work mafia in the 1990s.

Ansari’s gang and Singh’s gang competed for dominance in the ₹100 crore contract business, which encompassed sectors like coal mining, railway construction, scrap disposal, public works, and the liquor trade.

These gangs were also purportedly engaged in operating protection and extortion rackets, in addition to criminal activities like kidnapping.

Early Political Career

Mukhtar Ansari leveraged the Muslim vote bank to secure victory in the Ghazipur-Mau area elections.

The intertwining of crime, politics, and religion led to numerous incidents of communal violence in the region. As a result, Ansari was accused of provoking violence after one such clash.

However, he was subsequently acquitted of all charges by the court.

During Ansari’s incarceration, Krishnanand Rai was publicly assassinated along with six of his associates.

The assailants used six AK-47 rifles to fire more than 400 bullets, with 67 bullets being recovered from the seven bodies with the assistance of Ramashrey Giri.

A key witness in the case, Shashikant Rai, was found dead under suspicious circumstances in 2006.

He had identified Angad Rai and Gora Rai as the gunmen who attacked Rai’s convoy on behalf of Ansari and Bajrangi.

The police ruled his death as a suicide.

Following Rai’s murder, Brijesh Singh, Ansari’s rival, fled the Ghazipur-Mau area.

He was eventually apprehended in Orissa in 2008 and later ventured into politics as a member of the Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party.

In 2008, Ansari was booked for ordering an attack on Dharmendra Singh, a witness in a murder case.

However, later, the victim submitted an affidavit requesting the proceedings against Ansari be dropped.

On 27 September 2017, Ansari was acquitted of murder.

On January 9, 2018, Ansari and his wife suffered heart attacks while in a prison.

Bahujan Samaj Party

Mukhtar Ansari and his sibling Afzal were welcomed into the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2007.

They were admitted to the party after asserting that they had been falsely accused in criminal cases due to their opposition to the “feudal system” and pledging to abstain from engaging in any unlawful activities.

The BSP leader Mayawati depicted Mukhtar Ansari as a modern-day Robin Hood and hailed him as “a savior of the underprivileged”.

Ansari contested the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi on the BSP ticket while still incarcerated.

Despite this, he was defeated by the BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi by a margin of 17,211 votes; Ansari secured 27.94% of the votes, while Joshi received 30.52%.

Mukhtar Ansari, along with two others, was accused of the murder of Kapil Dev Singh in April 2009.

Additionally, the police discovered that he had orchestrated the killing of a contractor named Ajay Prakash Singh in August 2009.

In 2010, Ansari was implicated in the murder of Ram Singh Maurya, who was a witness to the slaying of Mannat Singh, a local contractor allegedly murdered by Ansari’s gang in 2009.

The two brothers were expelled from the BSP in 2010 once it became apparent that they were still engaged in criminal pursuits.

A search at Ghazipur jail, where Mukhtar was imprisoned, uncovered that he was leading a lavish lifestyle: amenities such as air coolers and cooking appliances were discovered in his cell.

Subsequently, he was transferred to the Mathura prison following the search.

In 2004, an FIR was filed against Mukhtar Ansari under POTA by DSP Shailendra Singh after a light machine gun (LMG) was seized from his premises.

DSP Shailendra Singh was later embroiled in a false case of vandalism for recommending Ansari’s arrest after a falling out with the ruling Samajwadi Party government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh.

The former DSP was acquitted of the fabricated charges by the Yogi Adityanath Government in 2021.

Quami Ekta Dal

The Ansari brothers, Mukhtar, Afzal, and Sibkatillah, established their own political party, the Quami Ekta Dal (QED), in 2010 after facing expulsion from the BSP and rejection from other political parties.

Previously, Mukhtar had founded the Hindu Muslim Ekta Party, which later merged with QED.

In 2012, he was accused under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act for alleged involvement in an organised crime syndicate.

In March 2014, Ansari declared his candidacy for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections against Narendra Modi in Varanasi, where he faced a significant defeat, in addition to contesting from Ghosi.

Nonetheless, in April, he withdrew from the race, citing his intention to prevent the splitting of “secular votes.”

Back in the BSP

On January 26, 2016, Ansari returned to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in preparation for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Legislative elections.

Prior to this, there had been much speculation about the Ansari brothers potentially joining the Samajwadi party a few months earlier.

BSP chief Mayawati supported Ansari’s decision to join the party, emphasizing that the criminal charges against him had not been proven and that the party believes in giving individuals an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves.

Subsequently, Ansari integrated his Quami Ekta Dal with the BSP in 2017 and emerged victorious in the state elections as a BSP candidate from the Mau assembly seat.

He secured a win over his closest competitor, Mahendra Rajbhar of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (an ally of the BJP), by a margin of 6464 votes.

Positions held

Murder of MLA Krishanand Rai and Conviction

Following the launch of a cricket tournament in 2005, Krishnanand Rai’s convoy was attacked on his way back home.

Krishnanand Rai and six of his associates lost their lives due to gunfire from AK-47 rifles.

Mukhtar Ansari had been incarcerated since 2005 in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab for various criminal offenses.

In April 2023, he was found guilty and handed a 10-year prison term for the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai by a Member of Parliament MLA court.

Subsequently, on March 13, 2024, Mukhtar Ansari was sentenced to life imprisonment in relation to a case involving counterfeit arms licenses.

Death

Mukhtar Ansari passed away due to a heart attack on March 28 at the age of 60. A team of doctors from AIIMS Delhi conducted an autopsy on his body and confirmed the cause of death.

His son, Umar Ansari, has alleged that his father was poisoned, leading to the heart attack.

Ten days before his death, on March 19, 2024, Mukhtar Ansari reported to the Barabanki Court about experiencing nerve and limb pain, which he believed was caused by a poisonous substance in his food.

The Uttar Pradesh government initiated a three-member magisterial investigation into these claims.

In response, Krishnanand Rai’s son, Piyush Rai, expressed in an interview that Mukhtar Ansari’s fate was decided by God during the month of Ramzan, referring to him as a “tyrant.”

Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, has called for a Supreme Court judge to investigate Mukhtar Ansari’s death.