Modi to hold rally in Saharanpur, road show in Ghaziabad today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address an election meeting in Saharanpur on Saturday and hold a road show in Ghaziabad the same afternoon.
Saharanpur goes to polls in the first phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 19 and Ghaziabad in the second phase on April 26.
“Yes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, being the star campaigner of the BJP, will address an election meeting in Saharanpur and hold a road show in Ghaziabad. PM launched the poll campaign in Meerut. He will address more meetings. We are contesting the poll with all positivity highlighting the achievements,” said Uttar Pradesh BJP vice-president and MLC Vijay Pathak.
Modi’s visit to Saharanpur may also revive memories of the controversial “boti boti” (cut into pieces) remarks that Congress candidate Imran Masood had made against him in 2014.
Five years later, campaigning for the BJP candidate in Saharanpur, Modi had hit out at Imran Masood for the remarks and said at a public meeting on April 5, 2019: “Yahan boti boti karne wale saheb bhi hain aur Congress ke shahzade ke bade chehte hain” (We have here he who made Boti Boti remarks and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has special love for him).”
Masood, who is contesting the same seat again, this time as a candidate of the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance, said, he is talking about “rozi-roti” and not “boti-boti” in the 2024 poll.
“This election is about ‘rozi-roti (bread and butter and jobs). I did not talk about ‘boti-boti’ in the 2014 polls. My remarks were quoted out of context,” he said.
The BJP has fielded former MP Raghav Lakhanpal while Majid Ali is the BSP candidate. Lakhanpal won in 2014 but lost to the SP-BSP alliance’s Haji Fajlur Rehman in 2019. The BJP aims to wrest the Saharanpur seat to achieve its mission of bagging all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Saharanpur came into focus in 1996 politically following BSP chief Mayawati’s move to contest the Harora assembly seat in the district. Mayawati won the seat in 1996 and again in 2002.
Besides having the seat of Goddess Shakambhari, Saharanpur also has Darul Uloom Deoband, an Islamic seminary. The BJP will focus the campaign on the achievements of the double-engine government (BJP governments at the Centre and in the state) and how the victory of the party’s candidate was needed for development of the region.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath, with their public meetings, have created a wave in favour of the BJP in western UP. This wave will have a positive impact across the state,” said BJP spokesman Avnish Tyagi.
The Congress-SP alliance and the BSP candidates are likely to raise issues about the people’s problems.