Penchant for procuring criminals for elections

I do not understand this fixation of Samajwadi Party to provide tickets to fight elections to people with criminal backgrounds.
Currently they have announced Sanjay Dutt as their candidate from Lucknow for the parliament elections this year. Now we all know the kind of background Sanjay Dutt has and his part in the Mumbai blasts and the subsequent multiple finger pointing with regard to his alleged relations with D company.
Why does Samajwadi Party consider him such a great choice? What has he done so far? What is his contribution towards and social cause?

In fact I remember reading some time back that they were also keen to offer M/S Abu Salem a ticket from Azamgarh. What exactly do they think that they are trying to do here?