Assault case: SP strongman Ramakant Yadav sentenced to jail for 4 months

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Former MP and Samajwadi Party MLA Ramakant Yadav has been sentenced to four months in prison by a court in a 2019 assault case. The MP-MLA court also imposed a fine of Rs 7,000 on Yadav, a prominent Uttar Pradesh politician who has served as an MP four times from the Azamgarh Lok Sabha constituency. Yadav has been associated with various political parties in the past, including the Bahujan Samaj Party, BJP, and Congress.

Yadav surrendered before an MP-MLA court last year in connection with a 24-year-old case related to election violence and is currently in jail.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (III) Shweta Chandra pronounced the sentence, stating that Yadav was found guilty in an assault incident that occurred three and a half years ago near Hotel River-View in Chak Pyar Ali of the city, according to Satish Kumar Pandey, a council member of the district government.

The prosecution stated that on December 5, 2019, when Yadav's convoy was passing through the area, someone from his vehicle struck the complainant, Mitrasen Singh, who was riding a bike, with a stick.

Allegedly, Yadav and his 10-12 supporters then disembarked from their vehicle and began assaulting Singh while hurling abuses at him. They allegedly pointed a rifle at his chest and threatened to kill him.

Yadav joined the Samajwadi Party in October 2019, shortly after being expelled from the Congress for "anti-party" activities. Previously, he had switched from the BJP to the Congress earlier that year. Yadav entered the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1996 as a Samajwadi Party candidate from the Azamgarh constituency. He won the seat again in 1999.

In the 2004 parliamentary elections, he contested on a BSP ticket and later won the seat in 2009 as a member of the BJP, which he had joined the previous year. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he contested from Azamgarh on a BJP ticket but lost to SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.

(With inputs from PTI)