FOUR YEARS after failing to win a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections and winning only 19 seats in the state polls earlier this year, the BSP on Friday won the Meerut and Aligarh mayoral seats, defeating the ruling BJP in the civic polls, results for which were declared on Friday. The SP, meanwhile, failed to win a single mayoral seat, losing the only mayor’s post it held in Bareilly to the BJP. In Meerut, where the mayor seat was reserved for an SC woman candidate, BSP’s Sunita Verma defeated BJP candidate Kanta Kardam — the state party vice-president. Verma, on the other hand, is the wife of former BSP MLA Yogesh Verma. While she received 2.34 lakh votes, Kardam got 2.05 lakh votes. Kardam alleged that anomaly in the voters’ list and shifting of Muslims votes from SP to BSP were behind her loss. “A large number of BJP supporters were missing from the electoral rolls. Also, SP and BSP had joined hands here against us. Among the Muslim community, Ansaris used to be traditional voters of the SP, but they voted for the BSP this time,” she claimed. Despite repeated attempts, Verma could not be contacted for comments. There are around 3.5 lakh Muslims and around 2 lakh Dalit voters in Meerut city. Local BJP leaders claimed that the combination of Muslim and Dalit votes helped BSP win the seat. In Aligarh, where BJP had been winning the mayor seat for the last four consecutive elections, BSP’s Mohammad Furqan defeated BJP’s Rajeev Kumar Agarwal by a margin of 1,00,11 votes. While Furqan bagged 1.25 lakh votes, Rajeev received 1.15 lakh votes. While Furqan could not be reached, sources in the party said he had unsuccessfully contested the Assembly elections in 1989 from Aligah city as a Congress nominee. Later, he had joined SP and then switched over to the BSP. BSP in charge for the Agra-Aligarh zone, Sunil Kumar Chittor, said that Furqan had joined BSP nearly 10 years ago. “The party gave him ticket for the mayor’s seat considering his clean image,” he said, adding Furqan had been the vice-president and later the president of the Aligarh Muslim University Student Union. He is into property business, Chittor said. In Aligarh too, BJP leaders blamed polarisation of Muslim votes and division of non-Dalit Hindu votes as major factors for the party’s loss. There are around 2.68 Muslims and over 50,000 Dalit voters in the city. “In past elections, a few Hindu candidates used to contest against a large number of Muslim nominees. This used to divide the Muslim votes. But this time, only two Muslim candidates contested. majority of the Muslims found the BSP nominee stronger than SP and hence, voted for BSP to defeat BJP,” said a BJP leader. He added that Dalit voters had supported BJP in the past when BSP did not contest on its party symbol. “But BSP contested on its symbol this time and Dalit votes went to its candidate,” the leader said. When contacted, BJP candidate Rajeev Kumar Agarwal said, “Other parties contested on their respective symbols, but all were united to defeat BJP. Total votes of SP, BSP and Congress are less than 50,000. Probably, they shifted their votes to BSP.” BSP also won 147 seats of corporators, 45 posts of nagar palika chairpersons and 262 nagar palika members as well as 83 seats of nagar panchayat chairpersons and 218 panchayat members. The SP, while it failed to win any mayoral seat, bagged posts of 202 municipal corporators, 28 nagar palika chairpersons, 477 nagar palika members, 45 nagar panchayat chairpersons and 453 panchayat members. When contacted, SP state chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said: “After analysing the poll results, we will release a statement tomorrow.”
