Lucknow: Signature campaign to oppose Dutt

A newly formed group of intellectuals have joined hands to oppose the candidature of Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt from the prestigious Lucknow parliamentary constituency.

With veteran journalist Kuldip Nayyar as its patron, the Forum Against Criminalisation of Politics on Thursday launched a signature campaign to push their one and only agenda for now.

"Our mission is to oppose criminals in politics. After Lucknow, we propose to undertake a similar exercise in other places," Rajiv Hem Leshav, president of the organisation told rediff.com.

"A delegation of the organisation is going to Varanasi and Unnao too, where mafia dons Mukhtar Ansari and Aruna Shankar Shukla alias Anna were the respective nominees of the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party," he added.

Prominent among those who had pitched in with the organisation were former Uttar Pradesh director generals of police I C Dwivedi, Sriram Arun and S.M.Naseem, besides former advocate general Umesh Chandra and some other well known judicial luminaries.

"The signature campaign will be sent to the Chief Justice of India seeking denial of permission to Sanjay Dutt", the organisation chief added.

Leshav felt, "The permission granted to cricketer Navjyot Singh Siddhu was also against the spirit of the law opposing criminalisation of politics."