Controversial MLA Tripathi takes oath

Lucknow, June 14 (UNI) Principal accused in the poetess Madhumita Shukla murder case, Amarmani Tripathi today took oath as a member of the 15th Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly.

Tripathi was brought here from Dehradun where he is lodged in a jail. The Nainital High Court had recently allowed him to take oath as a MLA.

Tripathi had won the Lakshmipur assembly seat on a Samajwadi Party ticket.

A mafia-turned-politician, and erstwhile cabinet minister of the state, Tripathi has been associated with several parties, most recently the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party.

He was arrested in September 2003 in connection with the murder of poetess Madhumita Shukla, with whom he allegedly had an affair, and who was brutally murdered on May 9, 2003. After investigations revealed that she was carrying a foetus that matched the DNA of Amarmani, he was arrested by the CBI.

On May 9, 2003, the budding poetess and allegedly the lover of Amarmani, was gunned down from close range in her two-room apartment in Lucknow's Paper Mill Colony. Phone calls relating to the murder were traced to his wife Madhumani in Gorakhpur, who has also been implicated in the murder.

UNI