Advocate Seema Kushwaha, lawyer of Nirbhaya & Hathras victims, joins BSP ahead of UP polls

Supreme Court Advocate Seema Samridhi Kushwaha, who ensured justice in one of the most sensational rape cases in the country, has joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections. The counsel of Nirbhaya in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case was given the BSP membership on Thursday in the presence of the party's national general secretary Satish Chandra Misra in Lucknow.

Seema Kushwaha had earlier said that she is joining the BSP to fight for the welfare of Dalits and the weaker section. The SC lawyer had made news with her eight-year-long legal battle to bring justice to a 23-year-old medical student who was brutally raped by six men on a moving bus and left to die on the night of December 16, 2012.

Years after the convicts were given capital punishment in the case, Seema Kushwaha fought for justice in the Hathras rape and murder case. She also started a campaign to fight for rape victims free of charge and founded the Nirbhaya Jyoti trust.

Seema Kushwaha joins BSP

Seema Samridhi Kushwaha is originally from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh. Her induction into the Mayawati-led party comes just days ahead of the crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly election. Voting for 403 state assembly seats will be held in seven phases between February 10 and March 7. The counting of votes will be held on March 10.

BSP leader Satish Chandra Misra had recently announced that party chief and former CM Mayawati will not contest UP elections this year and she will be supervising the party's election campaign for UP and the other two poll-bound states. Misra, who is a Rajya Sabha MP, has also stepped out from fighting the elections this year. 

Image: Republic World