NEW DELHI: Law and order and national security were uppermost on the mind of Neha Tiwari, a businesswoman from Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram, as she stepped into her designated polling booth on Thursday. As the curtains went up on the general elections on Thursday, Ghaziabad turned in a fairly impressive figure, in terms of the turnout outside the heavily fortified polling booths. At the close of polling, Ghaziabad recorded a voting percentage of 57.6%.
Contrary to popular belief that urban voters are seldom sold to the idea of queuing up for hours to get their fingers inked, voters in Indirapuram, Vasundhra, Vaishali and Sahibabad — collectively known as the ‘New Ghaziabad’ — stepped out of their plush high-rise apartments on a sweltering day, standing up to be counted, notwithstanding the heat and the snaky queues outside polling booths.
“For me, this election is about national security. This (Modi) government has done a lot on this front,” Tiwari said as she waited her turn outside her poll booth at Delhi Public School, Indirapuram.However, fellow Indirapuram voters Devayu and Brinda Rastogi, were apparently not convinced by none of the candidates in fray and hence, voted NOTA.
“I felt none of the candidates deserved my vote. I read the manifestoes of both the Congress and the BJP, but weren’t sold on their promises to lead us into the future. Hence, I opted for NOTA,” Devayu said.
Away from the urban pockets, Pratap Vihar market in the main Ghaziabad district wore a deserted look as traffic was thin. Two booths — one of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the other of Samajwadi Party (SP) — came into view as one moved closer to Leelawati Public School.
“I am not a Ghaziabad voter as I hail from Bihar. But I can sense that it’s not a one-sided battle, as the BJP is facing stiff challenge from the Gathbandhan (SP-BSP) candidate. The GST has hit us hard,” Podraj, who runs a paan (betel leaf) store and also sells coconut water, said. Many in Muradnagar were seen searching for their names in the voters’ list. “I could neither find my name, nor anyone from my family in the voters’ list. We voted in 2014,” said a woman.BJP’s General VK Singh (retd.), who is seeking a freh term from Ghaziabad, is up against the alliance’s Suresh Bansal and Congress’ Dolly Sharma.
Fortress of saffron party
Ghaziabad, which was earlier a part of the Hapur seat, has mostly favoured the BJP in the recent past barring 2004, when the Congress won. In fact, retired Army Chief VK Singh got the second best margin in the country — more than 5.67 lakh votes against Congress’s Raj Babbar in 2014 — which was second to Modi only.