Now it's official! Rashtriya Ulama Council president, Maulana Amir Rashadi Madani, will contest parliamentary election against Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav from Azamgarh constituency of the state.
The RUC on Saturday also announced to contest lok Sabha election from 54 seats across the country, including 23 in UP. "Before the UP Assembly elections, the SP had made several promises, mainly to release innocent Muslim youths languishing in jails and to uplift the minority community but after coming to power, its Government neglected the community. Now we want to correct all the things that went wrong because of the SP Government in the state," Maulana Rashadi Madani said while addressing a press conference at party head office here.
He said that instead of working for the defeat or victory of candidates belonging to one or other political parties, the Muslim community and organisations should understand that the lok Sabha elections are the best opportunity to increase representation in political arena. When asked about RUC's strategy for the Varanasi parliamentary seat, Madani said presently the party was not contemplating to field any candidate from there and would extend unconditional support to the strongest candidate against Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. "At present, Mukhtar Ansari appears to be the strongest candidate. Aam Aadmi Party and its candidate Arvind Kejriwal do not have any base in Varanasi like Ansari," he added.
Commenting on Congress's Saharanpur candidate's hate speech, Maulana Rashadi Madani said the language used by Imran Masood was wrong and against the sanctity of election process and democracy and his arrest for the hate speech was correct. "But there should be no double standards. Recently, two BJP leaders -- Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath -- had also used harsh words. The police should investigate and if both these leaders are found guilty they too should be arrested for hate speech," he added.
Although the RUC did not announce the names of its candidates for the ongoing lok Sabha election, it announced to contest 23 seats in the state and hoped to emerge victorious in five constituencies. "We will be contesting election from lucknow, Unnao, Sultanpur, Azamgarh, lalganj, Ghoshi, Shrawasti, Ambedkarnagar and some other constituencies. Our candidate had filed his nomination for the Saharanpur seat but the returning officer cancelled it saying the papers were incomplete," he said.