Jailed MLA of Quami Ekta Dal Mukhtar Ansari will withdraw his candidature from Varanasi against BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, "to strengthen secular forces and avoid division of votes".
"A decision in this regard has been taken at the meeting of Quami Ekta Dal," party leader and Mukhtar's brother Afzal Ansari told PTI today.
The decision has been taken "to strengthen secular forces and avoid division of votes", he added.
"We will discuss our future course of action later. Now SP, BSP and AAP have to decide how to defeat Modi," he added.
Mukhtar is currently lodged in Agra jail in the BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai murder case.
Mukhter, who contested the last Lok Sabha polls on a BSP ticket against BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi, lost the election by a small margin. Later he quit BSP and formed the Quami Ekta Dal.