Lok Sabha elections: Barelvi cleric, Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, dumps Kejriwal for Mayawati

BAREILLY: Prominent Barelvi cleric, Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, who had recently floated a secular front, the Hindustan United Movement, has backtracked on his decision to support Arvind Kejriwal. Khan, chief of the influential Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC), had earlier said he was with the AAP chief if he would contest against Modi. He says he is now going with the BSP. The cleric said the decision was taken after a survey in Uttar Pradesh revealed that only the BSP could defeat "communal forces" like the BJP.

He said a survey by the IMC revealed that the Congress would be hard-pressed to win even a few seats, while the Samajwadi Party too was shown to be lagging behind.

"The fight in the state is between the BJP and the BSP in the Lok Sabha polls, and we will back the latter," Khan said.

Asked what made him change his mind on Kejriwal, he said, "I had requested all the regional parties who consider themselves secular not to field their candidates against Kejriwal, so that Modi could lose. But all the parties gave tickets to their candidates.

"We are conducting a survey in Varanasi. Apart from the BSP, if we find any party which can defeat the BJP in Varanasi, we may end up supporting that party for that particular seat," Khan said. The cleric has been known to shift his allegiance quite often. In the Lok Sabha polls of 2009, he had supported the Congress, while in the UP assembly elections of 2012, he had backed the SP.

BSP's Bareilly district president Mayank Shukla, buoyed by the support, said, "IMC is a big force in the state. In the last assembly elections, IMC got over 20,000 votes in each constituency. If we are able to convert even 50% of its total votes, we could emerge stronger in the polls, as in constituencies where we lose, the loss is by a margin of just about 4,000 votes."