Dhananjay Singh served as MP in 15th Lok Sabha as a Bahujan Samaj Party member (File)
An MP/MLA court here on Wednesday sentenced former MP Dhananjay Singh to seven years of imprisonment in a 2020 kidnapping and extortion case.
Presently with the Janata Dal (United), Dhananjay Singh was reportedly preparing to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Jaunpur. But the conviction now makes him ineligible under the Representation of the People Act to contest election.
Additional Sessions Judge Sharad Kumar Tripathi, who held Dhananjay Singh and his associate Santosh Vikram guilty in the case of kidnapping of Namami Gange project manager Abhinav Singhal on Tuesday, also imposed a fine of Rs 75,000 on each of them, District Government Counsel (Criminal) Satish Pandey said.
Satish Pandey said that Muzaffarnagar resident Abhinav Singhal had filed a case against Dhananjay Singh and his partner Vikram on May 10, 2020, at Line Bazar police station under IPC sections of kidnapping, extortion, conspiracy and others.
According to the FIR, Vikram, along with two associates, kidnapped Abhinav Singhal and took him to the residence of Dhananjay Singh where the former MP came with a pistol and abused him and pressured him to supply low quality material. On refusal, he threatened Abhinav Singhal and demanded extortion, it was alleged.
The former MP was arrested in this case and later got bail from the Allahabad High Court.
The district government counsel said that on the basis of CCTV footage, call details record, WhatsApp messages and statements of witnesses, the crime was proved against the accused.
As soon as the sentence was pronounced, hundreds of Dhananjay Singh's supporters gathered in the court premises got dejected.
Dhananjay Singh had plans to contest on the Jaunpur Lok Sabha seat on NDA constituent JD-U ticket. However, after the BJP declared former Maharashtra home minister Kripashankar Singh as its candidate from that seat, he got disappointed.
The former MP was reportedly trying to get a ticket from the Samajwadi Party.
Dhananjay Singh, who served as the member of Parliament in the 15th Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014 as a Bahujan Samaj Party member, is described as 'Purvanchal Bahubali'.
In 2011, BSP president Mayawati expelled him from the party on charges of anti-party activities.
Recently, Dhananjay Singh had, through a post on 'X', indicated his plans of contesting the coming Lok Sabha elections from Jaunpur seat.
He had won elections for the first time in 2002 from the Rari Assembly seat as an independent candidate.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)