Oppn forms strategy for Gzb poll
Opposition parties and leaders of the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc held a coordination meeting in Ghaziabad on Saturday to plan their strategy for the district for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, people familiar with the matter said.
Uttar Pradesh is one of three states in which the Lok Sabha elections will be held in seven phases between April 19 and June 1, and as per the Election Commission of India schedule, the Ghaziabad constituency will go to polls on April 26. The results will be declared on June 4.
The Congress is fielding Dolly Sharma, the party’s spokesperson and All India Congress Committee member, for the Ghaziabad seat. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded sitting MLA Atul Garg. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Friday picked Anshay Kalra as its candidate for the upcoming polls.
The meeting between the INDIA bloc and opposition parties’ district-level members was held in Indirapuram where functionaries of the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and the Azad Samaj Party, chalked out the strategy to intensify the combined election campaign.
“The office bearers and leaders
of the Congress, the SP, AAP and Azad Samaj Party have joined hands and discussed the strategy for the upcoming polls. The meeting on Saturday was to decide about campaigning and also about booth-level strategy,” Dolly Sharma said.
It was agreed that campaigning will be carried out by the allies in all the five assembly segments in Ghaziabad district, she
added.
“Apart from joint campaigning, we have also strategised about booth-level approach where meetings will be held to strengthen the booths across the district,” Sharma added further.
Virender Yadav, the city president of the Samajwadi Party said that the meeting had a positive outcome.
“We also decided upon forming
a central committee for the entire district and also five committees in each of the five assembly segments for campaigning and booth strategy. We also agreed that the candidate will file nomination on April 1 and in presence of senior leaders of the allied parties,” Yadav added.
Sachin Sharma, district president of the AAP, said that the AAP and the Congress are part of
the INDIA bloc at Central level.
“In UP, our party leaders have given the responsibility to district presidents to decide and support educated candidates against the BJP. So, in Ghaziabad, we will support the Congress candidate with the active support from our party workers and resources,” Sharma added.
According to past election results, the Ghaziabad seat has been majorly won by the BJP candidates and the party’s claims of robust organisational and booth-level workers in its ranks bolster chances of its candidate.
In 1991, 1996, 1998 and 1999, BJP’S Ramesh Chandra Tomar won the Ghaziabad-hapur parliamentary seat. In 2004, Congress’ Surendra Prakash Goel won the seat, while in 2009 Ghaziabad elected Rajnath Singh as its MP.
In 2014 and 2019, the seat went to BJP’S General VK Singh (retired).
The BJP, on the other hand, said that they have already started with their campaigns across the district.
“Our candidate is backed by five MLAS in the five assembly segments and about 4,000 office bearers are directly active in five assembly segments. We are a cadre-based party and our strategy goes up to booth level. Our preparations are already taking shape at ground-level while other parties are still strategising. So, this gives us an advantage,” said Pradeep Chaudhary, media coordinator of the BJP city unit.
The BJP this time also has support of its newly-joined ally, Jayant Chaudhary-led Rashtriya Lok Dal.
In Ghaziabad, the officials have already chalked out 841 polling centres and 3,197 polling booths for the 2024 election.