Video grab of Shambhulal Regar who filmed his act of murdering a Muslim man. (File photo)

New Delhi: Shambhulal Regar, the man accused of burning and hacking to death a Muslim man in Rajasthan's Rajsamand, is all set to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Agra. The Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena, a lesser known political outfit in UP, has offered Regar a ticket and has also claimed that he has accepted the offer.

"The Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena has decided that for the Agra Lok Sabha seat, the party's candidate will be Shambhulal Regar. He will contest the election from inside Jodhpur jail, where he is currently lodged," Amit Jani, National President of the Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena, told News18.


Agra is a seat reserved for members of Scheduled Castes and is currently represented by BJP's Ramshankar Katheria, the Chairman of the National Commission of Scheduled Castes (NCSC).

Last year in December, Regar had hacked to death a Bengali migrant worker, Mohd Afrazul who was working in Rajsamand. Since a video of the act went viral and Regar has been put in jail, his popularity among the Hindus in the state has skyrocketed. Some even took out tableaus in his honour.


READ | Meet Shambulal Regar, New Face of Hindu Far Right in Poll-Bound Rajasthan

When asked if Regar had accepted the offer, Jani said, "I have been in touch with him for a long time now and I am pleased to say that he has agreed to be out candidate from Agra. We want only Hindutva faces to contest elections on our party's tickets and there can be nobody better than him. We will soon make a formal announcement."


News18 asked Jani if he was comfortable associating with a man accused of such serious a crime, to which he said, "People like Atique Ahmed, Mukhtar Ansari and Raja Bhaiyya have far more serious cases against their names. If someone like Shahabuddin can contest elections, then so can Shambhulal Regar. He is innocent until proven guilty - a murder accused, not a murderer."

Jani himself has been arrested in the past for a 2016 Facebook post in which he threatened to murder former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. Days after his Facebook post, a JNU-bound bus was seized with weapons on it.