Planning underway for Mayawati poll rally at Ghaziabad on April 21

Mayawati is likely to hold public rallies in Ghaziabad and Sikandrabad on April 21 and 22, just before 48-hour period ahead of the polls in Noida and Ghaziabad

Noida:

BSP chief Mayawati (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT PHOTO)

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which recently launched a door-to-door campaign with people in the Gautam Budh Nagar district, has plans to organise a rally in the next few weeks, which will be led by party chief Mayawati, on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections. Noida and Ghaziabad will vote on April 26.

With campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections picking up pace, people familiar with the matter said that Mayawati is likely to hold public rallies in Ghaziabad and Sikandrabad on April 21 and 22, just before the 48-hour period known as ‘election silence’ kicks in ahead of the polls in Noida and Ghaziabad.

“A committee has been formed and villages have been chalked out as sectors and members of the party have been assigned duties in these sectors on a rotational basis. Candidates and party workers will be interacting with people and listening to their problems. Initially, the party members will call upon the people and then at a designated date, the selected candidate will meet them,” senior BSP leader Satveer Nagar said.

The BSP chief has fielded a Rajput candidate in Gautam Budh Nagar and through the initiative launched on April 2, the party’s Lok Sabha candidate Rajendra Solanki has been meeting people and villagers of the constituency and trying to understand their grievances. “Solanki ji was recently in Khurja and Sikandrabad where he attended meetings and rallies,” Nagar said. HT had reached out to Solanki for a comment but he did not respond.

So far, the BSP which has decided to contest independently, has declared 36 candidates for the 80 seats in the state, among which it has fielded Muslim candidates from Kairana, Rampur, Pilibhit, Moradabad, Saharanpur, and Amroha. To be sure, a number of the BSP candidates are Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) turncoats.

“In the run-up to the date of polling, our national coordinator Akash Anand organised an election rally. Over the next few days too, we will be interacting with the people of the district totally irrespective of any caste or community,” BSP leader Lakhmi Singh said.