2024-03-28 16:39:03
New Delhi: BJP, which is busy in announcing tickets for the Lok Sabha elections, has canceled the tickets of many of its sitting MPs. The tickets that have been canceled also include Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat, adjacent to Delhi and considered a stronghold of BJP. From here, BJP has fielded sitting MLA Atul Garg in place of Union Minister VK Singh, who reached Parliament after winning the elections twice. This change has also happened because Ghaziabad seat is very important for BJP. Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat, which became a separate constituency in the new delimitation and before that was counted along with Hapur, has bloomed the maximum number of times in the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat. But, there came a time when veteran Congress leader Surendra Prakash Goyal had defeated BJP in its own stronghold. However, this happiness did not last long for Congress and in the next election, Rajnath Singh again won this stronghold of the party and gave it back to BJP. The story is of 2009 Lok Sabha elections, when in the new delimitation, Hapar was included in the Meerut constituency. It was merged and Ghaziabad became a separate Lok Sabha seat. Earlier in the 2004 elections, Congress leader Surendra Prakash Goyal had defeated four-time MP Ramesh Chandra Tomar from Hapur-Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat. Tomar was elected as MP from this seat in 1991, 1996, 1998 and 1999. In 2009, when the command of BJP was in the hands of Rajnath Singh, the party canceled the ticket of Ramesh Chandra Tomar. In fact, a decision was taken to field Rajnath Singh himself from the Ghaziabad seat in the Lok Sabha elections.
‘I don’t need to take anyone’s name on stage’
Since, BJP had lost from here in the last election itself and Surendra Prakash Goyal managed to get Congress ticket again on the basis of his friendly image. So in such a situation, Rajnath Singh considered it necessary to gauge the atmosphere in Ghaziabad before the official announcement of his candidature. Rajnath Singh’s public meeting was held at Ramlila Maidan in Ghaziabad. The workers worked hard to make this public meeting successful and a large number of people came to listen to Rajnath Singh. People were so eager to listen to Rajnath Singh that when the then UP BJP President Ramapati Ram Tripathi was taking the names of each leader present on the stage in his speech, in between there was sloganeering from the crowd to call Rajnath Singh. It started happening. Rajnath Singh got up to give a speech and seeing the enthusiasm of the crowd present in front, smilingly asked – ‘Do I need to take anyone’s name on the stage?’ After this the gathering echoed with laughter.
Rajnath placed his hand on the sore spot of the people
Vijay Mohan, who was the metropolitan president of BJP at that time, says, ‘Ramlila Maidan was packed and Rajnath Singh’s target was the Mayawati government of the state. Sensing the resentment among the people towards the state government, Rajnath Singh raised the local issue and said sarcastically – When his party was in power in UP, the farmers used to get ample electricity. When a tired farmer returned home in the evening after working hard in the fields all day long and found electricity restored, he could at least see his wife’s face in that light. His tiredness throughout the day would end. But, today this government has implemented such policies that farmers are not even getting adequate electricity. Rajnath Singh, while making a quip, had touched the public’s sore spot.
Rajnath Singh won by 90681 votes
This speech of Rajnath Singh remained in the news for many days among the local media and people. A few days later, BJP officially announced his name as the candidate from Ghaziabad seat. Surendra Prakash Goyal from Congress and Amarpal Sharma from BSP were in the fray against Rajnath Singh. When the election results were released, Rajnath Singh won by defeating Surendra Goyal by a margin of 90681 votes. Rajnath Singh got 359637 votes and Surendra Goyal got 268956 votes. At the same time, BSP’s Amar Sharma stood third by getting 180285 votes. Rajnath Singh once again took back the stronghold of BJP which Congress had snatched from it.