Siwagat Ullah Ansari, who is the Assembly member from Mohammadabad and also Mukhtar Ansari’s brother, had a significant role to play in the latter’s refusal to contest elections from Varanasi. He had conducted a public opinion survey in the city to gauge the conditions for Mukhtar contesting as an independent candidate. According to the survey, Mukhtar would have got merely 19,000-20,000 votes against Modi. Most Muslim voters were favouring Arvind Kejriwal of AAP.