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BSP candidate Mukul Upadhyay does not treat AAP as competition in the April 10 elections and feels BJP's candidate former Army chief V K Singh may get second highest votes after him in the constituency, which has 22.64 lakh voters.
Claiming that he has support from all communities in the seat, Upadhyay said a vast majority of Dalits, Brahmins, Muslims, Vaishyas and Gujjars would vote for him which would be difficult for his nearest competitor Singh to match.
The 41-year-old Brahmin candidate of the Mayawati-led 'Dalit' party told PTI that he was not bothered with AAP candidate Shazia Ilmi as the debutante party will only get a few thousand votes.
"BJP may get a lion's share of the Thakur vote in which I may get less. People from the Vaishya community, who used to be earlier with BJP, is with me this time. They are angry because BJP did not field a candidate from their community," he said.
Ghaziabad has 4.5 lakh each Dalit and Muslim voters, four lakh Brahmin, 1.5 lakh Thakurs, 2 lakh Vaishyas and one lakh each Punjabi and Jat voters among others, he said.
Talking about his 'work' rendered to Ghaziabad which includes his interactions with youth and elderly persons, he said, "I have done a lot of work for the last two and a half years for people here being in their midst. I have blessings of lakhs of old people with me and befriended thousands of youth. People's favour is with me."
"I have worked like a tortoise. The day BJP and Congress announced their candidates' name for this constituency, I have started sensing my winning by a wide margin," he said.
Upadhyay said he intends to do a lot of development work for the constituency which includes widening of two national highways, bringing metro-rail service further into Ghaziabad and on top of all, improving the law-and-order situation.
