The Samajwadi Party gave a ticket to murder-accused politician Amarmani Tripathi’s son to run for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2017. Amanmani Tripathi will contest from the Nautanwa constituency in Maharajganj district, party state president Shivpal Yadav (pictured above) announced on Monday, according to PTI.

Amarmani Tripathi is currently in jail, serving a life sentence for the murder of poet Madhumita Shukla, who was shot dead in her house in Lucknow in 2013. Amarmani Tripathi, who was a minister in the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet then, had allegedly ordered the murder along with his wife, a co-accused in the case. He had an affair with Shukla before she was killed, and autopsy reports had revealed that she had been carrying a foetus that matched his DNA. Shukla’s elder sister later released a book on the murder and the family’s struggle to get justice in the case in 2015, reported The Indian Express.

Amanmani Tripathi, too, had his own troubles with the law. He was an accused in the death of his wife Sara in 2015. He was arrested the same year after he emerged unharmed from the accident that killed his wife. He had reportedly married her against his parents’ wishes. Amanmani Tripathi was also wanted by the police in kidnapping and extortion cases in 2015.

Besides Amanmani Tripathi, the Samajwadi Party on Monday declared its candidates for eight other Assembly seats. They include Mukesh Srivastava from Prayagpur (Bahraich), Usha Verma from Sandi (Hardoi), Mohammed Irshad from Nakud (Saharanpur), Subhash Rai from Jalalpur (Amebedkar Nagar) and Sanjay Yadav from Obra (Sonebhadra), among others. The party also changed its candidates for 14 constituencies, PTI reported.