CURATED BY – GAURAV SINGHAL | CITYCHIEFNEWS

Saharanpur, The number one Saharanpur Lok Sabha seat will go to polls in the first phase on April 19. There, the MLAs of major parties will also play a role in the victory or defeat of the candidates. Interestingly, two of the three major candidates do not have any MLA of their own. In favor of BJP's Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma, who is contesting for the third time, his party's three MLAs Rajeev Gumber of Saharanpur metropolis, Devendra Nim of Rampur Maniharan and Brijesh Singh of Deoband region are working day and night for the victory of their candidate by making the election a question of their prestige. Have united. The other major candidate, Imran Masood of Congress, who is also contesting this third Lok Sabha election, does not have any MLA from his party in Saharanpur parliamentary constituency. Imran Masood himself is leading his election campaign in all five assembly constituencies. However, Imran Masood can definitely get the benefit of two Samajwadi Party MLAs supporting him, Omar Ali Khan of Behat and Ashu Malik of Saharanpur Rural. But the figure of both the MLAs is 36 compared to Imran Masood. Imran Masood maintains silence when asked in this regard. Keep in mind that Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav himself wanted to make BSP MP Fazalur Rehman Qureshi the candidate from Saharanpur seat and when the seat went to the Congress quota, he had also offered the Congress leadership to make Fazalur Rehman the candidate. But the Congress party remained adamant on the name of its militant Muslim leader Imran Masood. Imran Masood is considered to have a good influence on the Muslims of the entire district.
On the assembly seat, in the 2007 assembly elections, Imran Masood had defeated cabinet minister Jagdish Rana, who was in the Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav government. Imran Masood may hardly get as much support as expected from the two SP MLAs. Imran Masood also does not seem to be getting support from former Deoband Municipal President and former MLA Mavia Ali in the Muslim dominated Deoband seat. Former Deoband Municipal President Ziauddin Ansari is unwell. But his sympathies are with BSP candidate Majid Ali. Majid Ali is a member of the District Panchayat. Majid Ali is a resident of Phulas village in Kali river crossing area of Deoband region. His wife has been the District Panchayat President from BSP. BSP also has no MLA in the district.
Majid Ali was in Chandrashekhar's Azad Samaj Party till a few days ago. Mayawati had come to her election campaign in Deoband region on 14 April but due to very less presence of Muslims, Mayawati was angry at the BSPs. Maulana Abdullah Javed, an expert and scholar of Muslim thinking, says that the first choice of Muslims in this election is Congress and after that Muslims are with Samajwadi. Due to SP-Congress alliance in UP, the inclination of Muslims will remain in the same direction. Among Muslims, Imran Masood can outweigh BSP. Jagpal Singh, a strong leader of BSP and a three-time MLA from Mayawati's seat, is a Dalit leader in BJP. He had contested the last election from Saharanpur Dehat seat on BJP ticket. BJP is getting good support among Hindu Gujjars. Mukesh Chaudhary and Kiratpal Singh of Gurjar community are MLAs from BJP. However, both the assembly seats fall in Kairana Lok Sabha constituency. Chaudhary Rajpal Singh Gurjar, President of District Cooperative Bank, says that the major support of his community is with BJP. The resentment of Rajputs is gradually decreasing in the district. Two former MLAs of Rajput community, Virendra Thakur and Shashibala Pundir, say that there is resentment among Rajputs against BJP for two-three reasons. The first is that this time Rajputs have got less tickets and General VK Singh's ticket has also been cut. Secondly, Rajputs feel that after the elections, the BJP high command will remove Yogi Adityanath from the post of Chief Minister. Despite so much opposition from Rajputs, the high command has not given any strong statement in favor of Yogi Adityanath. It is a different matter that the party is sending Yogi Adityanath to Saharanpur again and again. He has come thrice before and on April 16, Yogi ji will participate in the road show in Saharanpur city. In these circumstances, there is confusion on Saharanpur seat. Visually, the contest appears triangular i.e. BJP-Congress and BSP. But in the end, the possibility of polarization of voters and a direct contest between the BJP and Congress alliance cannot be ruled out.