Organisational strength does make a difference for any political party, agree both the Congress and the BJP in Agra, where the ruling party has won the Lok Sabha polls in 2009 and 2014 and is now hoping for a hat-trick.
The party, however, has replaced its sitting MP Ram Shankar Katheria with S P Singh Baghel, while the Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Manoj Kumar Soni, and the Congress Preeta Harit, a former IRS officer.
"Our organisation is very big and strong. We have our dedicated workers from the top level to the district and booth level and that makes a difference," said Shyam Bhadoria, Agra and Fathepur Sikri unit president of the BJP.
He said Katheria won the Lok Sabha elections twice, while BJP's Bhagwan Shankar Rawat had won three consecutive terms (in 1991, 1996 and 1998) in Agra.
"We have dominated this seat earlier and will return to power this time also," he said.
He dismissed the mahagathbandhan (mega alliance) of the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) as "thug-bandhan" (alliance of thugs).
"They (both the alliance and the Congress) failed to find any local candidate who could dare to take on the BJP, so they have brought the candidates from outside," Bhadoria claimed.
On sitting MP Katheria being replaced with S P Singh Baghel, a sitting MLA and minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, he said," This is a decision of the party and the organisation".
The Congress's Agra and Fatehpur unit chief Dushyant Sharma said his party does well when solo but has bore the brunt of forging alliance in the past.
"Our central leadership had decided in 2014 to go with an alliance and that had weakened us. We managed to get only two seats in UP, had given up even Fatehpur Sikri for the sake of the alliance. In the 2007 assembly elections in the state, we got 34 seats without any ally and similarly in 2009 parliamentary polls, we got 22 seats in UP," he said.
"This time we are fighting the Lok Sabha polls alone. We have nothing to lose, whatever we get will be our gain," Sharma told PTI.
However, Congress's former district unit chief Jagdeesh Verma thinks otherwise.
"There is no organisation here. Infighting and groupings have hurt the Congress and that is why we have not been able to win. The situation now is such that party workers don't come and stand together at crucial times," Verma, who unsuccessfully contested the assembly elections in 2002 and 2007, told PTI.
On Harit being an "outsider", Sharma said, "She is an educated woman who has resigned the post of an IRS officer to join the politics and work for the people".
"This is an encouraging move from her, and will give people the hope about Congress," he said.
Agra, which has a little over 19 lakh voters, including 8.64 lakh females and 10.40 lakh males, goes to poll Thursday with the BJP expecting its "inclusive development model" would win it the Scheduled Caste (SC) reserve seat.
To crush anti-incumbency factor, the BJP has replaced Katheria, who has been given ticket from Etawah, also a reserved seat.
Agra Lok Sabha constituency has five assembly seats of Etmadpur (4.2 lakh voters), Agra Cantonment (4.3 lakh), Agra South (3.54 lakh), Agra North (4 lakh), and Jalesar (2.89 lakh), which is part of Etah district.
"We have delivered 'sabka saath, sabka vikas'. The schemes of the BJP like the Ayushman Bharat health insurance have equally benefitted the Muslims, who are considered anti-BJP, and the Dalits, who are supposed to be pro-Mayawati," Bhadoria said.
"Several others schemes of the Modi government have helped bring together people across castes and religion in support of the BJP," he added.
Congress's Sharma lists out the reasons why the poll is important and the BJP, which is occupying all positions of power from the Centre to the state and the municipal corporation in Agra, needs to be ousted.
"There has been a pressing demand for an international airport here, an international-level stadium. These two are needed because no industry can come up due to legal regulations because of the Taj Mahal," he said.
"We have been demanding a bench of the Allahabad High Court here for 30 years now, solution to the drinking water problem, stray animals' menace, law and order as well as traffic situation here," he said.
Sharma said the BJP -- despite being in power at the Centre since 2014, in the state since 2017 and holding power in the municipal corporation of Agra for 25 years --has not been able to resolve these issues.
If elected, BSP's Soni says he has plans to work on priority level to resolve water, traffic problems, and work for all-round development of Agra, while also giving an impetus to the tourism potential of the Taj city.
Soni is banking heavily on the support of the Jatav votes and help from allies SP and RLD.
In 2014, BJP's Katheria had won 5.83 lakh votes, 54.53 per cent of all votes, while BSP's Narayan Singh Suman came second with 2.83 lakh votes (26.48 per cent). SP's Maharaj Singh Dangar had got 1.34 lakh votes (12.58 per cent) and Congress' Upendra Singh managed only 34,795 votes, 3.25 per cent of all votes.
This time there are nine candidates in the fray for Agra, including two Independents, down from 15 in 2014.
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