The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday won 14 out of 16 mayoral seats in the Uttar Pradesh municipal elections, NDTV reported. The Bahujan Samaj Party managed to bag two seats in Aligarh and Meerut.
The counting of votes began at 8 am. The elections were conducted in three phases on November 22, 26 and 29. The overall voter turnout was 52.4%.
Three independent candidates – Pramod Jayaswal, Rukhsana and Vijay Sahu – won Nagar Panchayat seats in Jafrabad, Madiyahun and Kerakat in Jaunpur. In ward number 56 of Mathura, the BJP’s candidate Meera Agarwal won via a lucky draw as both the BJP and the Congress had polled 874 votes each.
Chief Minister Adityanath said that the results showed that people had faith in the BJP. “These elections are meant to make us all take responsibility,” the chief minister said at a press conference. “The election results will also open the eyes of those who said they will impact the Gujarat Assembly elections. I would like to give credit of this win to all BJP workers who worked for the party to communicate its agenda of development to the voters.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Adityanath and the state BJP over the victory. “Development has triumphed again in the country,” he said on Twitter. “This victory will further motivate us to work harder towards the development of the people.”
BSP candidate Mohammad Furkan will takeover as mayor in Aligarh, ANI reported. The party’s candidate Sunita Verma won the mayoral election from Meerut.
The BJP also won the Nagar Panchayat elections in Amethi, which is considered a bastion of the Congress. However, the BJP lost all six Nagar Panchayat seats in Ghaziabad’s Kaushambi, the hometown of Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.
Some incidents of violence were reported from a few areas. Four people were injured after the police lathi-charged crowds gathered outside the counting centre in Muzaffarnagar.
Local reports said that counting began late in some places like Deoria, Farrukhabad and Fatehabad because the officials did not arrive on time. There are 334 counting centres across the state.
The first phase of polling saw nearly 53% voting. Voting was peaceful at all polling booths except one in Badaun, where votes were cast again as incidents of ballot papers being damaged were reported. Polling was done in five municipal corporations of Agra, Kanpur, Ayodhya-Faizabad, Meerut and Gorakhpur, 71 municipal boards and 154 nagar panchayats – spread across 24 districts – in the first phase.
The second phase of voting was marred by reports of malfunctioning EVMs and names missing from the electoral rolls. Polling in 25 districts saw a voter turnout of 52%. The second phase covered 189 civic bodies. It included six municipal corporations, 51 municipal councils and 132 nagar panchayats.
In 2012, the Bharatiya Janata Party had won 10 of the 12 mayoral posts, but bagged only 42 municipal boards chairperson seats and 36 seats in nagar panchayats.
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