In a hurriedly called press conference on Wednesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party tried to wipe clean the egg on its face. A few hours after Mayawati’s tainted former minister Babu Singh Kushwaha joined the saffron party on Tuesday, there were 60 raids on his premises in UP, Delhi and Haryana. While the BJP questioned the timing of the raids, political pundits questioned the party’s prudence itself in lapping up Maya’s ‘corrupt’ crumbs.

Kushwaha: the story so far: Day after Kushwaha joins BJP, CBI greets him with raids

Also read: Unease in BJP over Kushwaha's induction

By all account, even a political naive would not be surprised at the raids given Kushwaha’s records of indiscretion as minister in the Mayawati cabinet. Until he was sacked from the cabinet after the mysterious death of deputy CMO inside the Lucknow district jail, Kushwaha was called ‘number two’ in the BSP. There were serious allegations against him on account of misuse of power to raise funds for the BSP. Those who know Mayawati’s style of functioning can vouch for it that Kushwaha could not do it without blessings of ‘Behenji’ as Mayawati is fondly referred to within the BSP circles.

Kushwaha’s induction within the saffron fold would have been dismissed as yet another instance of perverted politics that had taken hold of the state had it not come across as definite symptoms of deeper malaise. In Uttar Pradesh, those with dubious track record in social life are getting firmly entrenched in the power structure. The BJP which prided itself on claiming it to be “party with a difference” is surprisingly emerging as rallying force for all criminals and corrupt (read the story) at a time when Anna’s campaign against corruption is the real flavour and BJP senior leader LK Advani has just come back from a 40-day exhaustive rath yatra against corruption. Anyway, the egg could not be wiped clean. The grime is already baked into gravel, which might as well pave the party’s road to perdition in the upcoming UP polls.

But the BJP has its justifications (for letting Kushwaha in), of course other than those mentioned in the press conference. A party which has just too many prime ministerial candidates so badly lacks a face to draw voters in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. The party knows very well that the absence of a state leader will affect its poll prospects. And to better its chances, it laps up anyone, like Kushwaha, who just happened to walk by.

Since politics doesn’t have infallibles, BJP’s faux pas and the resultant embarrassment is ephemeral, but the ilk of Kushwaha, of which UP has seen many, getting legitimacy in the political system by riding on the anti-incumbency factor is a dangerous trend. Sadly, it has been there long.

In the past two decades, crime has become inseparable from UP politics. Raja Bhaiyya, Naresh Agarwal, Hari Shankar Tiwari and the likes have frequently changed sides to survive. Their money, muscle and caste equation always managed a few seats and their acceptability in the political system. The blame, however, squarely comes on the political parties which were never game enough to put their foot down.  The temptation to lure in the corrupt and criminals is too strong to resists for UP politicians. This was the precise reason why most of those accused in attack on Mayawati in the state guest house on June 2, 1995, found place in the BSP. Similarly, Mulayam Singh found his secularism expendable to induct Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the man who led Advani's chariot to Ayodhya before the demolition of the mosque. Perhaps once again the UP polls would truly mark the deepening of clouds which have been hanging over the country’s most populous state for the past two decades.