As Ghaziabad votes today, there’s no clear wave but multiple ripples

Rajnath Singh, Gen VK Singh, Raj Babbar — Ghaziabad once attracted stars from every sky and relished the attention it received. The 2024 LS polls are different. This time, the big guns have bypassed NCR, much like the automobiles swishing past the constituency’s breathless expressways. Flags, posters, slogans too are largely missing. But the absence of VIPs has its benefits.
Luminaries make campaigns more about personalities than policies. Without headline names, the focus and conversation are on issues.

At Sahibabad’s unkempt vegetable and fruit mandi (wholesale market), smelling of overripe fruits and rotting rubbish, the public talks less about the candidates and more about the concerns facing them. But it appears that in these politically polarised times, the electorate has decided which party to vote for. And for some, the pressing issues haven’t got in the way of their choice.
Hoisting a small sack of watermelons on his shoulder in the summer heat, Sachin Kumar Prajapati, an OBC, reels out a long list of grievances. “Garib piss raha hai” (the poor are getting squeezed), he says, then elaborates. He talks about the absence of electricity, high fees in private schools — “The govt schools are no good” — and, more importantly, cattle destroying crops. “You have to guard your crop from the day you sow it. If you leave for a day, it is gone.” Yet, he will vote for BJP. “I always have,” says the 30-plus fruit vendor. He doesn’t explain why.

Rajnish Kumar, a Baniya by caste selling cottage cheese for a living, is happier than Prajapati. Among other things, he wants BJP to win because he feels there should be synergy between MLAs and MPs. “How else do they coordinate?” Rajnish reasons. He shares caste with BJP candidate Atul Garg, 59. The current MLA from Ghaziabad assembly has a decent voting base in the town’s populous old market. The seat’s four other assembly segments (Loni, Muradnagar, Sahibabad and Dholana) too voted saffron in 2017.
Garg, a businessman, is pitted against Congress’ Dolly Sharma, 40. Like Garg, she is a familiar name in local politics. In 2019, Gen VK Singh had retained the Ghaziabad seat for BJP, winning by 5 lakh votes and polling roughly 62%. An MBA and a former mayoral candidate, Sharma was among his rivals contesting for Congress. She had polled 1.1 lakh or merely 7% of the votes. But this time, Sharma will be synergised by the party’s alliance with SP, which received nearly 4.5 lakh votes (29%) in 2019.

Poised on the eastern edge of the national capital, Ghaziabad is a slosh of places and people with one foot in the past and the other in the present. As per 2011 figures, the literacy rate is 78% (higher than the state average of 68), but the child sex ratio is 850 (lower than the state average of 902). Swathes of the constituency are either rural or semi-urban, but voters from the suburban middle-class colonies of Indirapuram, Vasundhara, Vaishali will also be crucial to the outcome. Pawan Sharma, 61, lives in one of them. The retired soldier says his pension shot up from Rs 7,200 (2006) to Rs 38,000 (2024). “Why do I vote elsewhere,” says Sharma, a Brahmin. Brahmins, Muslims (25% in the district), Dalits (16.5%), Thakurs and Jats are numerically significant.
Fruit merchant Shamim (gives one name) says his world has changed for the worse. He talks about rampant unemployment and how the CAA & NRC have impacted Muslim minds. “The govt is always talking about bringing in more and more laws. We are a little scared of the new laws,” the 50-year-old fruit merchant says. He objects to EVMs. “When so many people have protested against them, why can’t we return to the ballot paper?” A former SP voter, he plans to vote for Congress.

So does Shahid Ali Khan, who owns a medical store in nearby Maharajpur. Khan says the country has weakened under Modi. “Health and education are zero,” he says. “If people still say, ‘Modi magic,’ it’s only due to the media.” He feels optimistic about Dolly Sharma’s chances.

At nearby Kadkad, another store owner Mukesh Bharti and mason Satyavan, both Dalits, also plan to vote for Congress. “Many will vote for BSP. But some like us want to make our vote count,” says Bharti. Satyavan, a Valmiki, affirms.

Kadkad is a Thakur-majority village. Home to Rawals, Ranas, Gehlauts and Chauhans, the village hosts a Rajput dharamshala and a temple where pran pratishtha took place on the same day as in Ayodhya. Sitting outside his grocery store, Roop Singh Rawal lauds Modi for providing free ration to the poor, for raising desh ka samman (national pride) but more importantly, for the Ram Mandir. “Nobody else would have done it,” he says. At the mandi, electrical worker Mahesh Thakur has similar views. “Main kamal hoon,” he declares.

In recent weeks, Rajput discontent with BJP over the denial of seats in western UP, particularly to Gen VK Singh, and other issues related to community pride, has been widely reported. Rawal believes that the community leaders don’t carry enough clout to make the entire community walk their talk. “The results will make that clear,” he says.