LUCKNOW: The tryst of Imran Masood, a prominent western UP leader, with the Bahujan Samaj Party ended with his expulsion from the party on charges of indiscipline on Tuesday. Masood, a turncoat who was formerly with the Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP), had joined the BSP in October last year and party president Mayawati had extended him a very warm welcome.
Masood had joined the BSP after a nine-month stint with the SP. He had hopped to the SP from the Congress just ahead of the UP Assembly polls in January 2022. Now Masood is likely to reunite with the Congress. He recently told media persons that he would take his next step only after consulting his supporters.
His appreciation for Rahul Gandhi recently did not go down well with the BSP chief. As per party sources, Masood was warned over the anti-party activities in which he was indulging for quite some time. However, he did not mend his ways following which he was expelled from the party. In the urban local body polls in May this year, Masood failed to muster enough support from his community to make his sister-in-law Khadija Masood, the BSP mayoral candidate from Saharanpur, sail through.
In fact, Masood was inducted into the BSP to win over Muslims. He was made the party’s coordinator in western UP immediately after joining it considering his clout in western UP.
As per party insiders, Masood was promised a Lok Sabha ticket from Saharanpur but when he failed to ensure the victory of Khadija in the civic polls, the party leadership went back on its promise of a Lok Sabha ticket for him.
In the 2014 elections, Masood was booked for his hate speech against PM Narendra Modi. He contested the election on a Congress ticket from Saharanpur and lost. Masood enjoys considerable influence in western UP because of his family. His uncle Rasheed Masood – a nine-term MP, five times in Lok Sabha and four times in Rajya Sabha member – was a state and later Union minister and had been with the Janata Party, Congress, SP and BSP in different phases of his political journey.
However, he was the first elected member of Parliament to be disqualified in 2013 after he was sentenced to four years jail term in connection with a corruption case.