The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday won mayoral elections in nine out of 10 municipal corporations in Haryana by a landslide. Contesting municipal polls on the party symbol for the first time, the Congress drew a blank.
The elections to 40 municipal bodies, including the bypolls to eight, were held on March 2. The Panipat municipal corporation poll was conducted on March 9. Besides the election to the mayor and president’s posts, 647 wards also went to polls in municipal bodies across the State.
Haryana BJP chief Mohan Lal Badoli said the party’s victory in the municipal polls was the “public’s seal of approval on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nayab Saini’s policies”, adding that it was a victory of the “sentiments” of the people.
Saying that the regime in power usually fared well in the municipal polls, Haryana Congress president Udai Bhan said the party was stronger in villages than the urban areas. He said a majority of the Assembly constituencies falling within these municipal corporations were held by the BJP.
Registering a convincing win in former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s bastion Rohtak, BJP’s Ram Avtar defeated Congress’s Surajmal Kiloi by a margin of over 45,000 votes. The Indian National Lok Dal’s Sooraj and Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Amit Khatak finished distant a third and fourth respectively securing over 3,000 votes each.
Similarly, the BJP’s Rajiv Jain, the husband of former Haryana Minister Kavita Jain, polled 57,858 votes in the mayoral bypoll to Sonipat municipal corporation defeating the Congress’s Kamal Diwan by a margin of 34,749 votes. AAP’s Kamlesh Saini polled 366 votes to finish behind NOTA (662).
The biggest win in mayoral polls for the BJP came in Faridabad where its candidate Parveen Joshi trounced the Congress’s Lata Rani by a margin of 3,16,852 votes. While Ms. Joshi got 4,16,927 votes, Ms. Rani managed to poll only 1,00,075 votes. AAP’s Nisha Dalal finished the distant third with 29,977 votes.
In Gurugram, the second-largest municipal corporation, BJP’s Raj Rani defeated the Congress’s Seema Pahuja by 1,79,485 votes. While Ms. Rani polled 2,70,781 votes, Ms. Pahuja got 91,296 votes.
Manesar tussle
However, the fight for political supremacy between the BJP’s Ahir leaders – Union Minister of State Rao Inderjit Singh and Haryana Industries Minister Rao Narbir – cost the party the mayor’s post in the newly-created Manesar municipal corporation. In a close contest, Inderjit Yadav, claiming support of the Union Minister after she was denied the party ticket, defeated the BJP’s Sunderlal Sarpanch by 2,293 votes. Mr. Rao Narbir and the party’s State leadership threw their weight behind Mr. Sarpanch, but Mr. Singh had the last laugh.
In mayoral bypoll to Ambala municipal corporation, the BJP’s Sejla Sandeep Sachdeva polled 40,620 votes to defeat the Congress’s Ameesha Chawla by a margin of over 20,000 votes.
The BJP also registered comfortable victories in Karnal, Panipat, Yamuna Nagar and Hisar municipal corporations.