Shah, Yogi in Saharanpur, Priyanka in Moradabad

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected in Meerut later this month to lay the foundation stone of state’s first sports university at Salawa in Sardhana area

MEERUT: Union home minister Amit Shah and chief minister Yogi Adityanath would lay the foundation stone of a university named after Shakumbhari Devi in Punwarka district of Saharanpur on Thursday.

The two leaders are also scheduled to address a public rally in Saharanpur. Many ministers and leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are camping here for preparations of the rally. The BJP had recently given Shah the responsibility of western UP.

“The BJP nearly won all the constituencies of west UP in the 2017 assembly elections. But, due to the ongoing farmers’ movement, the situation has changed now. To cut losses, BJP is now banking more on new social equations of non-Jat and nonYadav OBCs and that is why Amit Shah and other BJP leaders are visiting this region to push this new equation,” said Janata Dal (United) general secretary KC Tyagi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected in Meerut later this month to lay the foundation stone of state’s first sports university at Salawa in Sardhana area.

BJP leaders said the Prime Minister is also expected to lay down the foundation stone of the proposed ‘Ganga Expressway’ between Meerut and Prayagraj and inaugurate the Meerut-Delhi Expressway.

While Shah would be in Saharanpur, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi too is scheduled to address a party rally in Moradabad on Thursday.

Imran Pratapgarhi, who heads the party’s minority cell and hails from Moradabad has been working hard to ensure that Priyanka’s rally is a success, Congress leaders said.

Priyanka Gandhi had earlier organised ‘samvaad’ with her party’s frontal organisations from 14 districts of Meerut, Aligarh and Agra divisions in Bulandshahar.

Priyanka had sought feedback from them and then directed them to work hard for party’s success.

A similar ‘samvaad’ with party members of Saharanpur, Moradabad and Bareilly divisions and which was scheduled for Moradabad was cancelled as Priyanka Gandhi fell ill, party leaders said.

In her absence, Uttar Pradesh (UP) Congress president Ajay Kumar’ Lallu’ and party leader from Haryana Deepender Singh Hooda had interacted with partymen and collected feedback from them.

Jolted by the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 but revived by the ongoing farmers’ movement in western UP, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) too is looking to strengthen itself in its home ground.

Party leader Jayant Chaudhary who had addressed several ‘kisan mahapanchayats’ in past one year, to revive his support base has been organising series of ‘Parivartan Sandesh Yatras’. Before the UP elections, the RLD and Samajwadi Party (SP) have inked a pre-poll pact and both Jayant and SP president Akhilesh Yadav are to jointly address a Parivartan Sandesh Yatra in Meerut on December 7.

Earlier, Akhilesh Yadav had addressed a few public meetings in the region in which he received overwhelming response from people, party leaders said.

Bahujan Samaj Party leader Satish Chandra Mishra too had participated in few meetings organised to associate Brahmins with the party and to seek their support in the elections.

Political analyst Jamshed Zaidi said farmers’ movement has made a dent in the support base of BJP in western UP.

“The party is now projecting itself as one that is concerned for the development of the region and hence laying foundation stones of few projects and inaugurating few others to counter the impact of farmers’ movement,” he said.

Zaidi said Jayant was still struggling to revive his party’s traditional vote base in his home ground though his alliance with SP has strengthened him politically.