Lucknow: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s list of candidates for the Zila Panchayat poll in five districts of Uttar Pradesh includes the name of rape convict and former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s wife, Sangeeta Sengar.
Sangeeta will contest from Fatehpur Chaurasi in Unnao Zila Panchayat elections. She had won the Zila panchayat chairperson election in 2016.
Party sources said that her candidature was approved by state BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh and state general secretary (organization) Sunil Bansal.
Sangeeta was made the candidate, keeping in mind the influence that her family wields in the area and the sympathy that they have earned after Kuldeep Senger’s arrest in April 2018.
In December 2019, Kuldeep Sengar was convicted and jailed for life for raping a woman in Unnao in 2017 when she was a minor.
In March 2020, a Delhi court sentenced him along with all other accused to 10 years in prison in connection with the custodial death of the Unnao rape victim’s father.
Presently, he is lodged in Tihar jail.
With inputs from agencies