BJP wins seven mayoral posts, leads in two more, as Congress struggles to regain ground
Chandigarh: The BJP's mayoral candidates registered emphatic victories in seven municipal corporations in Haryana on Wednesday while its nominees were leading in two other civic bodies in the recently held elections.
The Congress, which was looking to turn around its electoral fortunes after suffering a defeat in the 2024 Assembly polls, had to bite the dust.
Polls to elect mayors and ward members in seven municipal corporations -- Gurugram, Manesar, Faridabad, Hisar, Rohtak, Karnal and Yamunanagar -- were held on March 2. The bypolls for the mayoral posts in Ambala and Sonipat and the elections for presidents and ward members in 21 municipal committees were also held that day.
For the Panipat Municipal Corporation, polling was held on March 9 to elect the mayor and 26 councillors.
According to the results and trends available for the mayoral posts, BJP candidates registered emphatic wins in Ambala, Faridabad, Gurugram, Hisar, Karnal, Rohtak and Sonipat, defeating their nearest Congress rivals.
The ruling party's candidates were in a comfortable lead in Yamunanagar and Panipat.
In Manesar, where municipal elections were held for the first time, Independent candidate Inderjeet Yadav won. She defeated her nearest BJP rival Sunder Lal by a margin of 2,293 votes.
In the outgoing municipal corporations, BJP had its mayors in eight of the 10 civic bodies.
Nikhil Madaan was the Sonipat mayor and a Congress leader. Ahead of the 2024 Assembly polls, he joined the BJP and won the Sonipat Assembly seat. In Ambala municipal corporation, Shakti Rani Sharma was the mayor as a Haryana Janchetna Party leader. She too joined the BJP ahead of the assembly polls and won the Kalka Assembly seat. The other municipal corporations where polling was held had BJP mayors.
The mayoral candidates who registered victories with big margins included the BJP's Faridabad nominee Parveen Joshi who won by over 3 lakh votes and Raj Rani from Gurugram who won by over 1.79 lakh votes.
Other notable winners included senior BJP leader Rajiv Jain who won from Sonipat and Renu Bala Gupta from Karnal.
Extensive arrangements have been made by the Haryana State Election Commission in coordination with the district administrations concerned to ensure smooth conduct of the counting process, officials said.
The civic polls dealt a blow to the Congress which saw workers and leaders in districts switching over to the BJP ahead of the elections.
The party state unit has, in the past, been faced with infighting and factionalism unlike the BJP, which has a well-organised and strong organisational structure at the grassroots level.
Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini recently exuded confidence that the BJP would win the civic polls, saying that work would be done three times faster after the formation of a "triple-engine" government, a reference to the saffron party being in power at the Centre, the state and the civic bodies.
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