‘Bigger than 2017’: Yogi credits development, good governance and fear-free environment for BJP’s UP sweep

By Saturday evening, when the counting was still underway, the party had won all 17 Mayor seats, and had a clear lead in Nagar Panchayat polls (544 seats) and Nagar Palika Parishad polls (199 seats).

BJP’s alliance partner Apna Dal meanwhile registered victories on both assembly bypolls seats – Suar and Channbey – results for which were also declared on Saturday. Apna Dal had fielded Shafiq Ahmed Ansari from Suar, known as the pocket borough of Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan that was vacated after the disqualification of his son Abdulla Azam. Ansari won the seat against Anuradha Chaudhary of the Samajwadi Party by over 8,000 votes. In the Channbey Assembly seat, which went to polls after the death of sitting Apna Dal MLA Rahul Prakash Kol, his wife Rinki Kol won the seat by a margin of over 9,000 votes against SP candidate Kirti Kol.

The elections, held across 75 districts, were significant for all the political parties as it gave them an opportunity to test and tinker with their social engineering formulas ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha polls.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his cabinet colleagues joined the celebrations at the party’s state headquarters in the evening, where bouquets and sweets were exchanged. Adityanath gave the credit for the win to the hard work of party workers and coordination between the party and the government. He said the public has given a mandate to the “good governance, development and fear-free environment” that was a result of the double engine guided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said BJP has won more seats in all local body elections as compared to 2017.

The Samajwadi Party retained its place as the second largest party, while the BSP finished third. Apart from the BJP, the BSP was the only party to have won Mayor seats in 2017 – from Aligarh and Meerut. This time, it declared 11 Muslim candidates on 17 Mayor seats, and despite giving a close fight on some seats such as Agra, it finished empty-handed.

The SP blamed the loss on alleged fake Aadhaar Cards issued by the government and claimed that people had not been able to vote. Akhilesh also demanded a recount in Gorakhpur.

The Congress, which celebrated its victory in the Karnataka assembly polls at the state headquarters, stood fourth, but leaders were content to have made a mark in the local body polls, winning a handful of seats and giving a close contest in others.

Neither Mayawati nor any senior Congress leader had come out to campaign for party candidates during the polls, leaving the fight to their local units.

At the receiving end of the CM’s barbs, Akhilesh had hit the streets to campaign, alongside his wife Dimple Yadav and uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav, during the last phase. This is a departure from the past, when he has steered clear of campaigning.

Out of 17 BJP Mayors, three have been elected for the second time in a row – Pramila Pandey from Kanpur, Vinod Agrawal from Moradabad, and Umesh Gautam from Bareilly.