WEDNESDAY’S acquittal by a particular courtroom of former MP Akbar Ahmed Dumpy, and co-accused Jagdish Narayan Mishra, in a 40-year-old case of the killing of a safety guard at a guest-house in Amethi marks one other twist within the profession of one of many extra vibrant personalities to tread the nation’s political panorama.
Dumpy was charged with homicide and destruction of proof within the case after bullets fired on Gauriganj Visitor Home premises on September 19, 1982, whereas Maneka Gandhi was staying there, killed a guard. Maneka had simply launched the ‘Sanjay Vichar Manch’ after husband Sanjay Gandhi’s dying.
Dumpy was born in Lucknow to IPS officer Islam Ahmed, who served because the IG of Uttar Pradesh Police in 1971 — the primary Muslim to carry the highest police place within the state (the state police chief was then often called IG).
What launched Dumpy to extra rarefied circles was his education at Doon College in Dehradun, the place he met Sanjay Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi household. After persevering with his research at Canning School in Lucknow, after which a stint on the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, London, Dumpy returned dwelling and located his method into politics.
Writer and senior journalist Rasheed Kidwai remembers Dumpy as somebody from a “good, aristocratic household”, but in addition very temperamental and vulnerable to rash actions with out considering them via.
Opinion is nearly uniform that Dumpy wouldn’t have come to highlight although for his adventures and misdemeanours had he not met Sanjay once more in an opportunity encounter at a marriage, after a niche of 18 years. This was 1976. When Sanjay, Indira Gandhi’s equally rash and politically bold son, urged him to affix him and the Congress, Dumpy accepted the supply.
In 1980, Dumpy was elected as an MLA from Haldwani (now in Uttarakhand) on a Congress ticket. The dying of Sanjay in an airplane crash in June of that 12 months might have halted Dumpy’s profession. His choice to aspect with Maneka, concerned in a tussle with Mrs Gandhi – the Prime Minister on the time — each elevated and sealed his destiny.
In 1982, as camps and rivalry started forming round her hand-picked successor Rajiv, and Maneka, Mrs Gandhi suspended Dumpy. When Maneka launched the Sanjay Vichar Manch, in flip, she appointed Dumpy as its convenor.
In 1987, Dumpy once more received elected, this time as an Unbiased MLA, in a by-election from Kashipur.
Later, with Maneka’s profession remaining stalled and her eventual drift in direction of the BJP, Dumpy joined the BSP. He was elected twice on the celebration ticket to the Lok Sabha from Azamgarh.
Nonetheless, as he received pushed additional away from the political limelight, Dumpy pale from view. No longer lively in politics, the 74-year-old who’s settled in Delhi together with his spouse Naina Balsaver Ahmad, an actress, mannequin and the winner of the Femina Miss India, 1976, leads a quiet life – roughly.
In February final 12 months, Dumpy was within the information when BJP chief Shazia Ilmi filed an FIR towards him for allegedly misbehaving together with her throughout a dinner hosted by cigar baron Chetan Seth in Delhi. The FIR was registered beneath Sections 506 (legal intimidation) and 509 (phrase, gesture or act supposed to insult the modesty of a lady) of the IPC.
Earlier than that, in 2020, Dumpy discovered himself within the information when a celebration organised by him in Lucknow noticed the participation of Bollywood singer Kanika Kapoor, who examined Covid-positive. The high-profile attendees included BJP MP Dushyant Singh, his mom and former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje, and former Uttar Pradesh minister Jai Pratap Singh.
Dumpy responded by self-isolating at his farmhouse at Kichha in Uttarakhand for 14 days.