Priyanka won’t make difference to Congress in UP: BJP MP

By Rajnish Singh

Bulandshahr (Uttar Pradesh), April 14 (IANS) BJP's Bulandshahr MP Bhola Singh, who won the 2014 election by over four lakh votes, is hoping to increase his victory margin this time around as he dismissed the BSP-SP-RLD alliance as of no consequence and said Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi was a flop.

Asked if the opposition "gathbandhan" is a challenge for the Bharatiya Janata Party, Singh told IANS: "The Gathbandhan, in a way, has helped me. All local leaders as well as the voters are now 100 per cent with me..."

Talking to IANS at his Yamunapuram residence, Singh claimed that the public knows that the opposition coalition's leaders were "afraid" because they did not think about basic facilities like toilet and gas connections and "only tried to divide the country for their own benefit and to fill their pockets".

With over six lakh votes, Singh, who crushed his Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Pradeep Kumar Jatav in 2014, now hopes to get more votes.

"As more people have come out in my support. I will find over 6.04 lakh votes which I got in 2014 elections," he said.

Asked about the Congress, Singh, with a smile on his face, said: "Congress has vanished from here.

"A joint Congress-RLD candidate had fought from here last time but he could secure only 59,000 votes. So, the scenario is clear. How much votes the Congress will get this time when it along with the RLD (Rashtriya Lok Dal) unitedly could not grab votes?"

To a question if there is any change after Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi started to campaign in Uttar Pradesh for her party, Singh said he does not think that there is any impact.

If there would have been any change after Priyanka Gandhi's entry, why did her brother and Congress President Rahul Gandhu chose to file nomination from another constituency besides Amethi, he asked.

Over issues of the public in Bulandshahr, which has remained with the BJP in all elections since 1991 save in 2009, the MP said people in the regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi "are problem free because all schemes run by him have reached to them honestly".

Asked about the work done by him in last five years and the programme for next regime if he wins the elections, Singh said that Bulandshahr comes into National Capital Region (NCR) but it had been only on the paper before 2014 as nothing was done in this regard.

"In the last five years, there has been PNG and CNG, passport facility, train for Vaishno Devi (in Jammu and Kashmir) and a Kendriya Vidyala in double shift. There is also four lane road work in progress from Bulandshahr to Meerut; Badayun via Debai; and Garh via Syana."

Asked over people's anger against him for not visiting in the constituency, Singh said he "is not a gram pradhan".

"I am not a gram pradhan of a village. I am an MP of 951 Gram Panchayats. I have visited every village. Visiting villages every day is not a work of an MP. MP's work is to make policy for the welfare of the constituency, and I have done it very well," he claimed.

Singh also alleged the violence in Bulandshahr in December - which left a police inspector and a youth dead - was a conspiracy of the opposition to defame the BJP.

Bulandshahr witnessed clashes between Hindutva activists and the police over alleged cow slaughter in the area.

(Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in)