Samajwadi Party MLA Irfan Solanki Sentenced to Seven Years in Land-Grabbing Case
Kanpur, 8th June 2024: Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA Irfan Solanki was sentenced to seven years in prison on Friday for a 2022 land-grabbing and arson case, leading to his disqualification as a lawmaker. Sentences of two years or more result in automatic disqualification.
Solanki, who is already in jail, was sentenced alongside his brother Rizwan Solanki and three others by an MP-MLA court in Kanpur. Judge Satyendra Nath Tripathi also imposed a fine of Rs 30,500 on each of them. The five were found guilty four days earlier.
Irfan and Rizwan Solanki were arrested in December 2022 for allegedly harassing a woman and setting her house on fire to seize her plot in Kanpur. The accused were charged under the UP Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act.
Irfan Solanki faces 17 cases and is under investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged money laundering and illicit assets. Earlier this year, a local court rejected his plea to vote in the Rajya Sabha elections.
In the current UP assembly elected in 2022, Solanki becomes the sixth MLA, and the third from SP, to lose membership due to conviction. Among those expelled from SP was party heavyweight and former Rampur MLA Azam Khan, who received a three-year jail term in a 2019 hate speech case. The other three disqualified MLAs were from the BJP.
