Senior BJP leader Brahm Dutt Dwivedi assassinated in UP

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Brahm Dutt Dwivedi was gunned down in his hometown, Farrukhabad in central Uttar Pradesh, late on Sunday night.

His personal bodyguard Brij Kishore Tiwari also died in the barrage of bullets fired by the killers from two 9 mm pistols at point blank range. Dwivedi's driver was seriously injured in the incident.

Vijay Singh -- who was the Congress candidate against Dwivedi in the September assembly election -- has been named in the police first information report.The state administration -- UP has no popular government and is under President's rule -- has requested the Centre for a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the murder.

According to an official spokesman, the incident occurred ten minutes after midnight, just outside the home of Dwivedi's old friend, Girish Chandra Agarwal. After Dwivedi attended a tilak ceremony at Agarwal's home, he had barely entered his car when the four motorcycle-borne assassins opened fire.

Even before Dwivedi's bodyguard could react, he too was fired at. Dwivedi was rushed to the local hospital, but was declared dead on arrival. Doctors say he was shot several times in the neck and stomach.

Vijay Singh has 21 cases registered against him. Once convicted in a case of attempt to murder in 1974, the police say he is currently facing trial in several cases of murder and attempt to murder. His wife, Damyanti, is chairperson of the local zilla parishad.

Singh lost badly to Dwivedi in the last election, but the two have been bitter adversaries for a long time. Much tension was witnessed between them during the last election campaign. According to the police, some eight criminal cases -- including one of murder -- are pending against Dwivedi, a former state minister.

Tension mounted in Farrukhabad, following a long march by BJP volunteers; Dwivedi was the party's stalwart in the region. Three companies of the armed police have rushed to the town to maintain law and order.

The state's principal secretary (home), V K Dewan, and Director General of Police Haridas Rao have arrived in the town with a team of detectives headed by Additional DGP R C Dikshit. P> Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, BJP president Lal Kishinchand Advani, former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh and state BJP president Kalraj Misra attended Dwivedi's funeral on Monday evening. Dwivedi was an outspoken critic of Kalyan Singh and was at the forefront of the recent campaign to install a BJP-Bahujan Samaj Party government in the state.

Party spokesman Lalji Tandon described the murder in a conversation with Rediff On The NeT as a "political conspiracy by all those for whom Dwivedi's increasingly towering personality was a threat." Tandon also accused Samajwadi Party chief and Union Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav of bearing an old grudge towards Dwivedi, "therefore nothing could be ruled out."