Scenes of victory at Shimla after Municipal Coporation polls results. (Express photo by Pradeep Kumar)
Creating a history of sorts in the poll-bound state of Himachal Pradesh, the opposition BJP reached the half-way mark in the Shimla Municipal Corporation winning 17 out of 34 wards in a close contest. This is the first time that the BJP has got a majority in the Shimla Municipal Coporation polls, considered as a semi-final before assembly polls later this year.
Though polls were not held on party symbols, both BJP and Congress had officially backed their candidates. Half of the elected candidates are women as 50 percent of the seats are reserved for them. The final tally at the end of counting showed BJP with 17 wards, Congress with 13, Independents winning 3 and CPM one.
Earlier in 2012, the CPM had won the Municipal Corporation’s Mayor and Deputy Mayor ‘s posts.The corporation had been a Congress citadel for the past 32 years . BJP state president Satpal Satti said the Congress after losing the poll was trying to create a confusion by adding Independents to its tally.
“We will form the next corporation,” he said. Independent Rakesh Kumar, who won Panthaghati ward, is likely to support the BJP, said Satti. There were a total of 126 candidates in the fray and polling was held on June 16 after the High Court orders as the ruling Congress had managed to defer the elections indefinitely.
The Congress government earlier had also changed the pattern of the polls changing it to non-party basis instead of holding the polls on party symbols.
