New Delhi: Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav will come together for the first time ahead of the Lok Sabha phase 1 polling on April 19 and make a joint pitch for the INDIA bloc in Ghaziabad on April 17. UP’s Ghaziabad, bordering Delhi, will have polling in phase 2 on April 26, but a joint press conference to be addressed by Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav on April 17 is expected to have an impact on the eight seats in western parts of the state that will have polling on April 19.

“Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav will address a joint press conference in Ghaziabad on April 17,” AICC general secretary in-charge of UP Avinash Pande told ETV Bharat. Old-timers recalled how a similar joint press conference addressed by Rahul and Akhilesh in Lucknow in 2017 had set the tone for the Assembly polls.

“The alliance coordination was not effective on the ground then, but both the allies are working together this time,” SP leader Rajaram Pal, who was in Congress in 2017, told ETV Bharat. “The public is angry with the BJP. Our leader Akhilesh Yadav has been campaigning in western UP over the past few days and has received huge support from the people. The BSP is no threat to the INDIA bloc as they have lost ground,” he said.

The eight western UP Lok Sabha seats going to polls on April 19 include Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Pilibhit, Moradabad, Rampur, Saharanpur, Bijnor and Nagina. Saharanpur is with Congress while the SP is contesting the remaining seven seats. In the 2014 national polls, the BJP had won seven of these eight seats and is again hopeful in 2024 and is also banking on ally RLD’s presence in western parts of the state to counter the unease among the Jat farmers, who dominate the area. The INDIA bloc is trying hard to reverse the trend, said Congress leaders.

Over the past few days, the AICC in-charge, along with local Congress leaders, has held coordination meetings with the SP leaders in western UP areas like Meerut, Shamli, Moradabad, Rampur, Bagpat, Sambhal, Muzaffarnagar and Ghaziabad to mobilise the voters.

“Besides the Congress-SP coordination, the distribution of our social justice guarantee cards to every household is also in focus. The INDIA bloc is fighting based on social justice plank to defeat the BJP. The welfare of farmers is one of our main focus areas. We met Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Naresh Tikait on April 13 and visited the memorial of his late father and well-known farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait in Muzaffarnagar. We apprised the farmer leaders about our manifesto guarantees related to them,” said Pande.

“It is our responsibility that the issues for which Rahul Gandhi travelled across the country must be taken to the people. That is the purpose of the INDIA bloc. We have to make the voters aware and remind them not to make any mistakes this time. Farmers, particularly sugarcane farmers are miffed with the BJP,” he said.