Heavyweights battle it out in Sahibabad triangular fight

The urban assembly segment of Sahibabad, the biggest segment in the state in terms of number of voters and 11 candidates in the fray, is witnessing a triangular contest. Sitting MLA Amarpal Sharma, who joined the Congress after his recent expulsion from Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Jalaluddin Siddiqui of the BSP and former MLA Sunil Sharma of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have equal potential to make or break it on Saturday.

The urban assembly segment of Sahibabad, the biggest segment in the state in terms of number of voters and 11 candidates in the fray, is witnessing a triangular contest. Sitting MLA Amarpal Sharma, who joined the Congress after his recent expulsion from Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Jalaluddin Siddiqui of the BSP and former MLA Sunil Sharma of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have equal potential to make or break it on Saturday.

Sahibabad has 8,65,275 voters of whom only 4,24,989 voters exercised their franchise. This included 2,44,127 men 1,80,860 women and two from the third gender. (Sakib Ali/HT)

Sahibabad has 8,65,275 voters of whom only 4,24,989 voters exercised their franchise. This included 2,44,127 men 1,80,860 women and two from the third gender.

The assembly segment was carved out in 2012 and seat was won by Amarpal Sharma who defeated BJP’s Sunil Sharma. The latter was then a sitting MLA from Ghaziabad assembly segment.

The prominent areas falling under the segment include Indirapuram, Vaishali, Vasundhara, Kaushambi, Rajendra Nagar, Lajpat Nagar, Khoda and Shaheed Nagar, among others.

Despite the unprecedented publicity campaigns by the district administration, the polling percentage in this segment failed to pick up and remained at a dismal 49.12%. This is way below the overall average of 55.8% polling percentage recorded in Ghaziabad district.

In 2012 too the segment has performed badly and recorded the lowest polling at 49.31% among all the five assembly segments in Ghaziabad district. Then too, the polling percentage was below the district’s average of 57.7.

The Sahibabad segment was also declared an ‘election expenditure sensitive’ segment by the Election Commission and a dedicated observer was deputed there to keep track of election expenditure. Usually, one observer is meant to look after two segments.