No one’s talking transport, power: Here, poll promises lack connect

GHAZIABAD: The Ghaziabad assembly constituency, which is the nerve centre of the district, includes residential, commercial and industrial areas. A number of urban colonies like Patel Nagar, Lohia Nagar, Nehru Nagar and Model Town are grappling with a plethora of civic problems. The issues are likely to determine the voting pattern in the area.
A number of villages, including Kotgaon, Nasirpur, Chhapraula and Bamheta have been left out of the developmental agenda, though they are as urbanised as the adjoining upmarket areas.
“The Ghaziabad Development Authority does not provide good civic or infrastructure facilities to the villages as it does to colonies developed by it. Over the past several years, property prices have skyrocketed in the villages but banks do not extend loans for construction of houses. Governments in the past had promised us loans but they were forgotten after the elections,” said Ram Kishan Sharma, a resident of Kotgaon.
The constituency has seen hectic campaigning by candidates of various political parties over the past few days. However, voters, particularly in the urban areas, feel that the candidates have been highlighting issues that do not matter to them.
“Most candidates are highlighting issues like poor condition of roads and drains. These are issues that are looked after by the municipal corporation. Not a single candidate has spoken about things like transportation, security, electricity supply or pollution. Transportation and pollution are major issues in the assembly constituency,” said Col TP Tyagi (retd), a resident of Model Town and president of Ghaziabad RWA Federation.
Public conveyance is a major concern of voters as there is no direct transit system from the area to Delhi or the Trans-Hindon areas. Short supply of electricity, like the rest of the district, is another major problem.
According to local residents, a proposal to install 200 CCTV cameras in the area has been pending with state government despite law and order situation taking a turn for the worse in the past five years.
In the 2012 assembly elections, the seat was won by BSP’s Suresh Bansal who defeated Atul Garg of the BJP in a closely contested battle. However, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Gen VK Singh (retd) of the BJP garnered over 1.20 lakh votes from this particular assembly segment. The candidates of SP, Congress, BSP and AAP put together could manage to get only less than 90,000 votes in the general elections.
This month, the assembly constituency is expected to witness a tough battle between the SP-Congress alliance, the BSP and the BJP. The BSP and BJP have repeated their candidates of last polls. Garg is a realtor whose family has been associated with the BJP for the past several decades. SP-Cong alliance’s candidate KK Sharma is a veteran leader of the Congress.