Amarmani Tripathi

Amarmani Tripathi is an influential politician from Eastern Uttar Pradesh. He has been a MLA from Nautanwa, Uttar Pradesh four times. He is currently serving a life sentence in the Madhumita Shukla murder case with conspiracy to murder. He had earlier been a cabinet Minister in the state of Uttar Pradesh with the Samajwadi Party under Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Tripathi was arrested in September 2003 in connection with the murder of poet Madhumita Shukla, with whom he allegedly had an affair, and who was murdered on 9 May 2003. The Post-Mortem report of Madhumita revealed that she was carrying a foetus that matched the DNA of Amarmani,^[1] and he and his wife Madhumani Tripathi were sentenced to life imprisonment in October 2007. ^[2]

Criminal career

Tripathi was an associate to Hari Shankar Tiwari, a long time MLA from the Indian National Congress.

After joining politics, Tripathi was instrumental in several large shifts of allegiance involving dozens of MPs, thus influencing the formation of several governments in Uttar Pradesh. He has been a member of the Indian National Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, and the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was Minister of State for Institutional Finance in the Rajnath Singh-led BJP government in 2001, but was dismissed in December that year, after the kidnappers of Rahul Madesia, the 15-year-old son of a businessman in Basti in eastern Uttar Pradesh, told the police that Tripathi had provided them the bungalow in Lucknow from where they were arrested.

Madhumita Shukla murder

On 9 May 2003, Madhumita Shukla, a 24-year-old budding poet and allegedly the lover of Amarmani, was gunned down at close range by two visitors in her two-room apartment in Lucknow's Paper Mill Colony. She was seven months pregnant at the time^[3]

In June 2003, the chief investigator in the case, Mahendra Lalka (IPS 1967), was suspended, by the State Government and then reinstated within 45 days as the government realised that Mr. Lalka was right and also Mr. Lalka was backed by the IAS and IPS lobby both from the state and center. A senior Indian Police Service officer claimed that Mayawati had ordered the suspension of state CID Director General Mahendra Lalka simply because he refused give Tripathi a clean chit.

^{[3] [4][5]} The case was subsequently transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, and Amarmani was arrested in September 2003. Phone calls relating to the murder were traced to Tripathi's wife Madhumani in Gorakhpur,^[1] who was also subsequently convicted for the murder.

Various attempts at getting bail were turned down,^[6] especially based on the DNA evidence of a relationship which he had initially denied. Amarmani and his wife were lodged in Gorakhpur jail, where they were found to be holding rock concerts.^[7] While still in jail, Tripathi won in the U.P. Assembly Elections, 2007 as an Independent candidate. He won the Lakshmipur Constituency seat in Mahrajganj District, defeating nearest rival Kaushal Kishore of the Rashtriya Janata Dal by a margin of nearly 20 thousand votes (12%)^[8]

In March 2007, the case was transferred to a special court in Dehradun, where Tripathi and his wife along with three others were convicted for the murder of Madhumita Shukla murder on 24 October 2007. The court has sentenced Amarmani, his wife Madhumani and two other accused to life imprisonment.

In 2012, Amarmani's son Amanmani Tripathi was given a ticket by Samajwadi Party for contesting in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, 2012.^[9] Amarmani managed to record a video from jail send out a message^[10] to the constituency of Nautanwa (merged with Lakshmipur after delimitation). Despite a wave in favour of SP, Amanmani lost to Kaushal Kishore of Indian National Congress by a margin of 4%.^[11]

References