Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati might have been really assertive in declaring that she would "send all criminals to jail," but the fact remains that one of her hand-picked ministers is already behind bars, while at least 10 others were facing criminal charges.
The cat got out of the bag only when the name of Anand Sen Yadav was announced to be sworn in as among the 19 ministers of state for independent charge. It was only after he failed to show up that everyone discovered that he was in jail.
Interestingly, however, no sooner than his inclusion in the ministry hit the headlines on various TV channels, jail authorities hastily pulled him out of the prison and got him admitted to the local hospital in Faizabad under the pretext of some ailment.
Anand Sen Yadav, who got elected from Milkipur in Faizabad district, is the son of Mitrasen Yadav, the Bahujan Samaj Party Member of Parliament from Faizabad, who figured in the recently exposed human trafficking scandal.
Along with Anand Sen Yadav, there were at least eight others in the 49-member Mayawati Cabinet, who were facing charges for major or minor criminal offences.
Badshah Singh was among those facing about a dozen criminal cases, including murder, attempt to murder, extortion, kidnapping and rioting.
Significantly, when a scribe sought his comments about these cases, Singh retorted with a smirk, "It is not just a dozen; there are at least three dozen criminal cases registered against me."
Feared due to his reputation in Hamirpur district of southern Uttar Pradesh, Singh was known as a brazen and arrogant politician whose actions always reflected his scant respect for the law.
Yet another minister with a criminal track record was Awadh Pal Singh Yadav .
About half a dozen other new ministers too were tainted, but their offences were relatively minor in nature.
These included Jamuna Nishad, Sangram Singh, Shazul Islam Ansari, Ramveer Upadhaya and Thakur Jaiveer Singh and Daddu Prasad.
Ironically, even as BSP chief Mayawati's ride to power was attributed to her echoing stress to teach outlaws a lesson of their lives, the party did not desist from fielding as many as 131 such candidates in the electoral fray.
As many as 63 of these figured in BSP's list of 206 who romped home to create history by forging a first single-party majority government in 16 years.
According to a study carried out by Election Watch, a NGO headed by former director general of police I C Dwivedi, 33 of the newly elected ruling party legislators were facing two or more criminal cases.
Six of them were facing charges of heinous crimes including murder, rape, attempt to murder or kidnapping. At least three of these were listed as "history-sheeters" in the state's own police records.