Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav nominated Kafeel Khan, a Gorakhpur based doctor, who was an accused in the case of the death of 63 children at Gorakhpur Medical College Hospital in 2017, allegedly owing to the shortage of oxygen, as his party candidate for the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh legislative council polls.
Khan, who was dismissed from service last year, has been fielded from the Gorakhpur-Deoria region, according to the SP sources here.
Kafeel's nomination assumes significance as he hails from Gorakhpur, the home town of UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath. ''It's a message to Adityanath that we are not disappointed by our defeat in the recent assembly polls and will continue to oppose his politics of polarisation,'' said a senior SP leader here on Wednesday.
Khan had earlier been arrested in the case and had spent nine months in jail before being enlarged on bail. He had been given a clean chit in the matter by a committee, which was probing the case. The state government had, however, constituted another committee to investigate the matter.
He had also taken part in the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests in the state. The police had later arrested him on charges of allegedly delivering inflammatory speech and NSA was also slapped on him. The Allahabad high court, however, had quashed the NSA saying that ''a complete reading of the speech prima facie did not disclose any effort to promote hatred or violence''.
The Gorakhpur based doctor had also written a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) alleging large scale rights 'violations' and 'misuse' of stringent laws to ''suppress the voice of dissent'' in India.
Kafeel has challenged his termination in court.
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