Party offices flooded with resumes as UP gets ready for local body polls

‘We don’t think that the outcome of the municipal corporation elections in Delhi -- the results of which are to be announced on Tuesday -- will have any impact in Ghaziabad,’ said Sanjeev Sharma, district president, BJP

With the announcement of the proposed reservation status of wards as well as the mayoral seat, the offices of various political parties in Ghaziabad are buzzing with activity and brimming with prospective candidates seeking tickets to contest.

Hoardings of mayoral candidates on Collectorate Road in Ghaziabad on Tuesday. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

The local body elections in Uttar Pradesh are likely to be announced by mid December.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is banking on its traditional support base, which has helped the party retain the mayoral seat consecutively since 1995 when the municipal board was upgraded to the status of a municipal corporation.

Even currently, the party holds 57 of 100 residential wards in Ghaziabad.

“The resumes have started coming in and a decision on tickets for councillors will be decided by party’s divisional level office bearers. There are several candidates who have approached my office for the post of mayor. Once we get the signal from the state unit, we will go ahead and select the candidates,” said Sanjeev Sharma, district president, BJP.

“We don’t think that the outcome of the municipal corporation elections in Delhi -- the results of which are to be announced on Tuesday -- will have any impact in Ghaziabad. In Uttar Pradesh, and more so in Ghaziabad, the issues are very different and we don’t anticipate any major opposition from the other political parties these elections,” Sharma said.

Sources in the party said there have been lot of deliberations on the choice of councillor candidates. The party sources said the deliberations centre around various factors, including caste-based equations. Going by the latter, candidates belonging of Vaish, Punjabi or Brahmin communities may get preference for the ticket for mayor, they said.

Apart from the BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is already been flooded with about 70 resumes for councillor tickets and about six resumes for the mayoral seat.

The sources in AAP said they are also awaiting the results of the local body polls in Delhi, where the exit polls have projected an edge for the AAP over the BJP.

“This time, we are expecting that people from other parties will join AAP in Ghaziabad. We are considering our own party workers for the post of mayor. The MCD polls in Delhi will surely boost our party’s prospects in Ghaziabad,” said Dr Sachin Sharma, district president, AAP.

The Congress, on the other hand, is waiting for senior leader Rahul Gandhi’s “Bharat Jodo Yatra” to pass through the district in January.

“The yatra will boost our prospects and will also pep up the party workers. Our main fight is with the BJP and prospective candidates have started obtaining prescribed forms to make their requests for mayoral ticket and the councillor tickets. People have obtained about three dozen forms over the past one week. The forms have been designed by the state Congress committee,” said Lokesh Chaudhary, city president, Congress.

The party at present has 14 councillors in the Ghaziabad municipal corporation.