All eyes riveted on Deoband seat

Akhilesh Tripathi

Lucknow: All eyes are riveted on Deoband seat in Saharanpur district which will be witnessing the polls during the second phase of Assembly elections on Monday (Feb. 14). The Muslim-dominated seat is having a multicornered contest. This has always been a centre of interest as India’s most famous Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband is located here. The seat has 110,000 Muslim voters who constitute nearly 40 per cent of the total electorate. Dalits follow with 70,000 voters.

During 2017, Deoband seat was won by the BJP whose candidate MLA Brijesh Singh has been fielded again. The SP-RLD combine has nominated Karthikeya Rana, son of former minister Rajinder Singh Rana. The BSP has given ticket to Rajinder Chaudhury. Rahat Khaleel is Congress candidate and Owaisi’s party AIMIM has fielded Amer Madani.

Deoband has been a thorn on the BJP’s side as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been casting aspersions against the presence of the famous Islamic seminary here which was founded in 1878 by Maulana Qasim Nanotvi. Maulvis educated and trained in the seminary are found all over the former British colonies. Yogi had even announced that a centre of the Anti-Terrorism Squad would be opened at Deoband. But Muslims and the Darul Uloom generally ignored it and refused to be provoked. The proposal has been put in cold storage, it seems.