Ghaziabad: A total of 25 candidates, including Gen VK Singh (retd) of the BJP Dolly Sharma of the Congress and Suresh Bansal of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance, filed nomination for the Ghaziabad parliamentary seat on Monday, the last day of submitting papers.Apart from the candidates of the three major political outfits, there were eight from smaller and regional parties and 14 Independents Several candidates performed havan before heading to the election office. “There was a havan at my official residence in Raj Nagar before I filed nomination,” said Gen VK Singh (retd).Sporting a ‘tilak’, Singh walked to the election office along with BJP MLAs Atul Garg, Nand Kishore Gujjar, Ajit Pal Tyagi and Mayor Asha Sharma. “I have done my best and it is for people of Ghaziabad to decide,” he said.Singh crossed the Congress’s Dolly Sharma and her supporters when she was coming out of the election office after filing her nomination. The two greeted each other with folded hands without stopping.Taking on the BJP later, Dolly said, “This is a party of braggarts and ‘jumlebaaz’ and cannot be trusted.” She said the BJP had “thrust an outsider on the people of Ghaziabad who comes only at the time of elections and then vanishes”.SP-BSP-RLD alliance candidate Suresh Bansal had to wait at the election office reception as Shivpal Yadav’s Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) candidate, Sewaram Kasana, was already in the process of filing his papers. Bansal’s supporters grew restless and said they were the bigger party. “We should be given the chance to file nomination first,” one of his supporters told the officials present. His request was turned down as the official replied: “We will go by rules.”Later, Bansal attacked the BJP and expressed confidence that they would “uproot the party which leads to divisiveness in society”.Other candidates who filed nomination included Nagender Chodhay of the Shiv Sena and Mohan Lal of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (Athawle).Apart from Dolly Sharma, there are two women in the fray — Geeta Pal of Hindustan Nirman Dal and ‘godwoman’ Divya Yogmaya Saraswati of Rashtriya Bhartiya Jan Jan Party.Meanwhile, 17 more candidates — 12 from parties and five Independents — filed nomination for the Gautam Budh Nagar seat on Monday, bringing the total number to 21. The Aam Aadmi Party’s Shweta Sharma, the lone woman candidate contesting from this seat, was among those who filed her papers.On Friday, BJP’s Mahesh Sharma, Congress’ Arvind Singh and SP-BSP’s Satveer Nagar and an Independent, Commando Ashok, had filed nomination. EC officials will now scrutinise the papers. The last date for withdrawal of nomination for both seats is March 28.(With inputs from Shafaque Alam in Noida)

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