In what the BJP is seeing as a big boost, the candidates fielded by the party and ally Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) won chairmanship of 25 of the 46 civic bodies for which elections were held on Sunday. Of these, the BJP alone won 22. With the Congress staying away, the Aam Aadmi Party made a big push in its first-ever civic polls in the state, hoping to ride the euphoria of its huge victory in neighbouring Punjab. Its eventual tally of one civic body win marks its debut, but would disappoint the party. The Congress, which saw opposition from within its own ranks for not fielding candidates on the party symbol, claimed Wednesday that 19 Independents who are now civic body heads were supported by it. Polls were held for posts of chairpersons of 28 municipal committees and 18 municipal councils. According to Haryana BJP president Om Prakash Dhankar, party candidates won control of 10 municipal councils and 13 municipal committees, and nominees backed by it three more. The JJP won one committee and two municipal bodies. Dhankar said the results showed that “the base of the BJP is expanding in Haryana”. With internal rifts and lack of district organisation behind the Congress decision to stay away – though the party justified it saying it had never contested civic polls on party ticket – the man who now holds the party command in the state insisted there was a silver lining. Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said: “There were places where four to five local Congress workers were contesting for each chairman seat. These Independent candidates have won about 19 seats and finished second in 30 places in close contests.” Hooda also claimed that the results were in fact bad news for the BJP, showing a “loss in support for it” in its stronghold of urban areas. “Independent candidates secured 52.2% votes against the BJP's 26.3% in cities,” he argued. While BJP candidates won in Kalka, Kaithal, Jind and Gohana, its candidates or supported nominees lost in Uchana, Hansi and Narwana. In a ward of Shahabad municipal body of Kurukshetra district, former minister Krishan Bedi’s son lost to a candidate supported by JJP MLA Ramkaran Kala. Bedi is currently political secretary to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. AAP won Ismailabad municipal committee in Kaithal, and lost Gharaunda, Pehowa and Kundli by a margin of less than 100 votes. The INLD led by Om Prakash Chautala won at one place. CM Khattar called the results a victory of the faith the people continued to have in the BJP, and said they showed that people are satisfied with the policies and programmes of the government. Khattar also talked about the panchayat elections, which will be next on the BJP's mind. While the BJP is known for its better base in urban areas than rural in Haryana, and a ruling party always does well in local body elections, this is still a boost for the party as now villages and small towns too have become part of local bodies where people from a farming background reside. It will also be a relief for the party since the two Assembly bypolls held in Haryana at the height of the farmer agitation had been won by the Opposition – Baroda going to the Congress and Ellenabad to the INLD. The Opposition believes that the delay in holding the rest of the civic polls, because of court cases and other technical reasons, helped the BJP by putting a distance between the elections and the farm Bill agitation. The recent victories of the BJP, especially in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and the Rajya Sabha polls where a candidate backed by it defeated the Congress's Ajay Maken, also created a momentum for the BJP.
