New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh is facing its first electoral test in the state as counting of votes for 652 urban local bodies began on Friday, bringing some good news for it in early trends.
The ruling government came to power in March this year after National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 325 of the 403 assembly constituencies in the state.
Soon after counting started on Friday, there was some good news for the ruling BJP as it was ahead on all 16 seats from where trends were available after an hour of counting.
According to a PTI report, BJP’s mayor candidates were leading in Meerut, Saharanpur, Lucknow, Ghaziabad and Gorakhpur as per initial trends.
The state government under chief minister Yogi Adityanath had constituted two municipal corporations of Ayodhya and Vrindavan-Mathura in March this year, soon after it came to power in the state.
Realising that the performance of the state government and the BJP would be closely scrutinized because of the civic poll results, Adityanath campaigned for his government. Campaigns of other political parties like Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) were low key. Neither BSP chief Mayawati or former chief minister and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav campaigned during the local body elections.
Counting of votes is underway for 16 municipal corporation, 198 municipal councils and 438 Nagar Panchayats. The elections witnessed an average turnout of, through all the three phases, of 52.5% of 3.32 crore voters.
The state election commission had earlier stated that counting of votes would be held at 334 centres at district headquarters. The polling for municipal elections were held on 22, 26 and 29 November.
The civic elections in Uttar Pradesh are important because both SP and BSP are trying to win back voters in urban centres and cities to consolidate their voter base, which was eroded during the assembly elections in March this year. It is a crucial test for the two parties to assess the ground situation and support base.
PTI contributed to the story