Fielded Tej Bahadur from Varanasi in honour of forces, nationalism: Samajwadi Party

The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday said that it has fielded former BSF constable Tej Bahadur Yadav against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in honour of India's security forces and nationalism and appealed to the people to stand with him.

"The Samajwadi Party has fielded former BSF jawan Tej Bahadur as alliance candidate in honour of security forces and nationalism. This is the high time that India stands with Tej Bahadur," SP spokesperson Ameeque Jamei told ANI here.

The party also cleared the air over its two candidates from Varanasi, saying: "The final candidate of the Samajwadi Party is Tej Bahadur."

He said that the SP-BSP-RLD alliance has posed a major challenge before Prime Minister Modi by announcing Tej Bahadur's candidature.

Jamei said, "There is a major challenge before Modi - he has to decide whether he is with security forces, India and nationalism or he is merely a BJP candidate."

The SP announced on Monday to replace its candidate Shalini Yadav with Tej Bahadur who was dismissed from BSP in 2017 after he complained about the poor quality of food served to soldiers in a viral video.

After the announcement, Tej Bahadur appealed the people to distinguish between the fake Chowkidar (a reference to Modi) and real Chowkidar of the country.

He had also claimed of getting the support of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to take on the prime minister.

AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in a tweet, hailed SP chief Akhilesh Yadav's decision to field Yadav from Varanasi. However, the AAP is yet to come clear on Tej Bahadur's claim.

Tej Bahadur was already in the fray as an independent candidate from Varanasi parliamentary constituency.

Shalini Yadav had insisted that she was the party's official candidate."I have filed nomination at the direction of national president. I am the official candidate of the party," she had said.

Varanasi seat was won by Prime Minister Modi in the last Lok Sabha elections. He had defeated AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal with a massive margin of 3.37 lakh votes.

The SP is contesting the Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in Uttar Pradesh.As per the seat-sharing pact, the SP is contesting 37 Lok Sabha seats, while Mayawati-led BSP and Ajit Singh's RLD have been allocated 38 and three seats respectively.

The election in Varanasi is slated to take place in the last phase of seven-phased Lok Sabha elections on May 19. The counting of votes will begin on May 23.