Voted for BJP to thank Yogi: Puja Pal

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party MLA from Chayal, Puja Pal – whose husband and then BSP legislator Raju Pal was shot dead in full public view by gangsters Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf in 2005 – has said that she voted for BJP candidates in the recently held Rajya Sabha polls to “thank Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath”.Puja Pal was among the seven SP MLA who cross-voted in favour of BJP in Rajya Sabha elections. Asked about the “compulsions” that prompted her to vote for the BJP, she said there were no compulsions as such.“Yogi ji ko apni taraf se aur apne samaj ki taraf se vote dekar unko maine dhanyawaad diya hai. Isliye diya hai ki jo hum logon ki peeda thi, mananiya mukhyamantri Yogi Adityanath ji ne us dard se nikala (By voting for BJP, I have thanked Yogi ji on the behalf of my community and myself, because he has addressed my agony and pain of the Pal community),” she said.Asked to elaborate on her agony and pain, Puja Pal said that “it is common knowledge and there is no need to explain it further”.Barely 9 days after her marriage, her husband Raju Pal was shot dead on Jan 26, 2005.In 2004, Atiq Ahmed was elected to Lok Sabha on SP ticket and had to vacate the Allahabad West Assembly seat from where he was the sitting MLA. In the bypoll in Nov 2004, Raju Pal, who was in the fray from BSP against Atiq’s brother Ashraf (SP), won the election.The brothers saw the defeat as a direct threat to their supremacy in the region and on Jan 26, 2005, Raju Pal was chased for 8kms and peppered with bullets. In the FIR, Ashraf was named the prime accused and Atiq was charged with orchestrating the crime. At the time of Raju Pal’s murder, Atiq and Ashraf were in the Samajwadi Party.With 160 criminal cases against him, don-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed, and his brother Ashraf, who had 52 criminal cases against him, were shot dead in police custody by three men on April 15, 2023, when the gangster brothers got off a police vehicle to enter a govt hospital for medical examination.The three assailants claimed they committed the crime as they wanted “instant fame”. Atiq and Ashraf were in police custody in connection with the murder of lawyer Umesh Pal who was an associate of Raju Pal. When Raju Pal was shot dead, he was accompanied by his wife Puja Pal and Umesh Pal.
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