Sangeeta Sengar, the wife of former Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a convict in the Unnao rape case, will contest panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh on the saffron party’s ticket, ANI reported on Friday.

Sangeeta Sengar will contest the election from Fatehpur Chaurasi Tritaya. She has been the zila panchayat chairperson of Unnao since 2016.

Panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held in four phases from April 15, the Hindustan Times reported. Votes will be counted on May 2.

In March 2020, a court in Delhi convicted Kuldeep Sengar of culpable homicide not amounting to murder for the death of the father of the woman who accused him of raping her in 2017. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in December for the rape, and was also ordered to pay Rs 25 lakh as compensation to the complainant.

Sengar was convicted of rape under the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for offence by a public servant committing penetrative sexual assault against a child. Multiple cases were registered in connection with the woman and the crimes committed against her.

The woman’s father was arrested in an illegal arms case, in which he was later found to have been framed, in April 2018. He died in judicial custody in Unnao on April 9, a day after his daughter tried to commit suicide outside Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath’s house as no action had been taken against Sengar. A few days later, a murder case was filed against Sengar, his brother and nine others.

The postmortem report of the 55-year-old listed multiple abrasions near the abdomen, buttocks, thighs, above and below knee joints and arms – indicating that his death may have been caused by a physical assault. His gastrointestinal tract had also been severely infected. The father was in judicial custody from April 4, after he got into a fight with the aides of the former MLA’s brother, Atul Sengar.

The woman was involved in a car crash in July 2019 in which two of her relatives – one of them an important witness in the rape case – were killed. The complainant and her lawyer were also severely injured, and the family had alleged Sengar was behind the car crash. There is an ongoing conspiracy case in the matter.