BJP comes out with flying colours in UP civic polls

Victory continued to elude the Congress for second time in the year in the state.  The grand old party could not even open its account in the state civic polls, while the BJP made a clean sweep giving a fresh lease of life to the party’s rank and file. Of the 13 municipal corporations, BJP is set to win in 10, enhancing its tally by two more as compared to the previous elections in 2006. In Allahabad and Bareilly, earlier headed by the Congress, BSP and the SP supported candidates are likely to be declared winners.

Both the major political parties of the state, Samajwadi Party and the BSP stayed away from the civic polls leaving the fight confined to the two national parties, smaller parties and independent candidates. In Allahabad, BSP supported candidate Aradhna Gupta is likely to win the seat. The candidate is former BSP minister Nand Kumar Gupta Nandi’s wife.

The Samajwadi Party had contested in 2006, but this time in order to avoid infighting in the party, the leadership decided to stay away from the elections.

In the prestigious Lucknow mayoral seat, BJP’s Dinesh Sharma managed to hold on to it for the second consecutive time. He defeated Congress candidate Neeraj Bora by a huge margin of 75,000 votes. In other major cities including Kanpur, Moradabad, Aligarh, Varanasi and Gorakhpur BJP registered wins.

Interestingly, BJP won mostly in Muslim dominated cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Aligarh, Moradabad and Agra indicating polarization of the Hindu votes against the Congress.

The BJP is also likely to win the Ghazaiabad mayoral seat from where former president of the BJP, Rajnath Singh is an MP. The comeback of the BJP in these urban areas is surprising as just three months ago; the party was routed by the Samajwadi Party in the same areas in the Assembly elections.

Twelve corporations, 186 Nagar Palika Parishad and 388 Nagar Panchayats in 71 districts of the state went to the polls in four different phases in June-July. The civic polls in the state were due to be held in 2011, but then ruling BSP kept postponing it.  The results indicate the fact that the urban voters mainly the middle class has developed antipathy towards the Congress.