LUCKNOW: In 1994, when the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav withdrew all cases against bandit queen Phoolan Devi - accused of Behmai massacre - and was released from jail after 11 years without trial, it was a well thought out plan. Two years later, Phoolan was fielded as the SP candidate from Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat. It was SP founder’s way of ‘social justice’ and she emerged victorious to become the first dacoit to enter parliament.
The graduation of Phoolan Devi, who had emerged as an icon for the Nishad community (mallah or boatmen), from a dacoit of Chambal to an MP, gave wings to the electoral ambition of many of her ilk. Before her, dacoits were known more for issuing diktats during both Lok Sabha and assembly elections. Long before Phoolan Devi entered Parliament in 1996, the BJP had fielded dacoit Tehsildar Singh to “reform a wayward person” against outgoing chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav in Jaswantnagar in Etawah district in 1991 elections.
Shiv Kumar Patel aka Dadua, killed in October 2007, was probably the last of the big ones to run his diktats in elections. The dacoit with influence across 12 districts, prepared a template for his fraternity to rule without contesting polls.
Congress has also fielded Ummed Singh Nishad, husband of Phoolan Devi, from Ambedkar Nagar constituency. However, his nomination papers were rejected for being incomplete. Dreaded dacoit Malkhan Singh had earlier campaigned for the BJP in the Chambal region during 2017.
Assembly elections. A terror in 1970s, Malkhan had 189 cases registered against him in 1982 at the time of his surrender. After Pulwama attack, Malkhan Singh had offered the Government of India to send 700 of his men to the border to ‘teach Pakistan a lesson’. At present, three dacoits Babuli Kol, Gauri Yadav and Sadhna Patel are active in the terrains and forests of Chitrakoot.
No different from the predecessors, they influence the voters in over 100 villages along the UP-MP border. In the 2017 assembly elections, Babuli Kol had assaulted a gram pradhan Genda Lal in Markundi in full public view, breaking his limbs because he was campaigning for a candidate against Kol’s wishes.
Social justice for dacoit Phoolan Devi
After the Behmai massacre, Phoolan, then a synonym of terror in both UP and MP, surrendered under amnesty scheme and jailed in 1983. She spent 11 years in Gwalior Central Jail and was released without any trial in 1994. She reached Parliament in 1996 as SP MP from Mirzapur.