Days of caste-, religion-based politics now gone: BJP's Mahesh Sharma in dig at opposition

The days of parties that engaged in politics of caste and religion are now gone, BJP leader Mahesh Sharma said on Wednesday, exuding confidence of securing a hat-trick of wins from the Gautam Buddh Nagar Lok Sabha constituency.Sharma, who filed his nomination on Wednesday, said the BJP first gave him a ticket to contest the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and has now reposed its faith in him as a Lok Sabha candidate.Sharma won the parliamentary polls in 2014, following it up with another victory in 2019.

The days of parties that engaged in politics of caste and religion are now gone, BJP leader Mahesh Sharma said on Wednesday, exuding confidence of securing a hat-trick of wins from the Gautam Buddh Nagar Lok Sabha constituency.

Sharma, who filed his nomination on Wednesday, said the BJP first gave him a ticket to contest the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and has now reposed its faith in him as a Lok Sabha candidate.

Sharma won the parliamentary polls in 2014, following it up with another victory in 2019. He had suffered defeat in the 2009 general elections.

''This is because of the love that I have got from the people in my constituency. I am confident of winning this time and improving upon my 2019 performance,'' he told reporters outside the collectorate at Surajpur.

Sharma won by a margin of more than 3.30 lakh votes in 2019.

Asked about the alleged angst among members of a particular community over his candidature, Sharma said, ''Our party does not believe in caste or community. Those who engaged in politics of caste and religion, their days are now gone.'' He claimed that the opposition can't even find someone who can contest the elections and have to change candidates three times, referring to the Samajwadi Party changing its nominee twice before finally settling on Mahendra Singh Nagar.

''I don't have anything to say about them. They have written their history and their future with their own doing. The opposition is a sinking ship,'' Sharma added.

On criticism from the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party candidates that the BJP leader did not have five projects to showcase as his achievements during his tenure in the Lok Sabha, the former Union minister listed out works that he claimed to have facilitated in the constituency.

''If someone sees and listens properly, they would know that the airport in Jewar was brought when I was the civil aviation minister. When a power plant costing Rs 12,000 crore came here (to Khurja), it was also me. When the Deen Dayal Institute (of Archaeology) came up here at a cost of Rs 300 crore, I was a minister at that time as well,'' Sharma said.

''Be it the expansion of the metro network or the Bodaki railway station or a botanical garden in Noida, I was there every time,'' Sharma said.

The BJP veteran is locking horns with the Samajwadi Party's Nagar and the Bahujan Samaj Party's Rajendra Singh Solanki, among others. Gautam Buddh Nagar, which has more than 26 lakh registered voters, goes to the polls on April 26.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)