2-year jail for Mukhtar's MLA son; he faces disqualification

VARANASI: UP MLA Abbas Ansari was on Saturday awarded two years' imprisonment in a 2022 hate speech case , leaving him facing disqualification .

SBSP legislator from Mau Abbas is the son of late mafia don Mukhtar Ansari . Abbas had been accused of threatening govt officials in the 2022 assembly poll campaign, saying "inka hisab-kitab kiya jayega (they will have to account for once opposition forms the govt)".

The sentencing by a special (MP-MLA) court comes just over two months after Abbas got bail from the SC in an ED-probed money-laundering case that had kept him in jail for more than two years. Prison terms of two years or more lead to disqualification of lawmakers under the law.

Abbas was present in court when the sentence was pronounced by chief judicial magistrate Krishna Pratap Singh. He was granted temporary bail and 30 days to file an appeal against the order. State prosecution joint director Chandrakesh Rai said the two-year sentence had set the ground for Abbas's disqualification as legislator. But the MLA's lawyer, Daroga Singh, claimed that if a sessions court stayed the order, Abbas would not be disqualified.