The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday made a clean sweep in the mayoral elections to five municipal corporations in Haryana. Votes for the positions of five Mayors and seven municipal bodies, including two municipal committees, were cast on Sunday.
Despite a decisive victory for the positions of Mayors, the BJP failed to secure a simple majority in Hisar and Rohtak municipal corporations, winning seven and eight wards respectively. It, however, swept the Panipat municipal corporation winning 22 of the 26 wards.
Independents ruled the roost in two municipal committees of Jakhal Mandi (Fatehabad) and Pundri (Kaithal), winning all the wards.
BJP’s Mayor candidate Avneet Kaur registered victory with the highest margin of 74,940 votes defeating her nearest rival and Independent candidate Anshu Kaur Pahwa, supported by Congress leader Balbir Pal Shah. Though the Congress officially stayed out of the elections, the party’s local leaders supported the Independent candidates in all the five cities.
Pitted against the united Opposition, BJP candidate Renu Bala Gupta, a Baniya, faced a tough fight from Indian National Lok Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party’s alliance candidate Asha Wadhwa, a Punjabi, also supported by the Congress leaders. Ms. Bala polled 69,960 votes to romp home with a margin of 9,348 votes in a keenly-fought contest. Caste politics seemed to take precedence over local issues in Karnal, represented by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in Vidhan Sabha, with the saffron party releasing a full-page controversial advertisement in major Hindi dailies in the city on December 16, the day of voting, pleading with the Punjabi community to vote for the party.
In Hisar, BJP's Gautam Sardana defeated Rekha Aren, supported by local Congress leaders, with over 28,000 votes. Similarly, Madan Singh of the BJP trounced his nearest rival Rakesh Kumar, supported by the Congress leaders, by 40,678 votes in Yamunanagar.
Fought on the home turf of two-time former Congress Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Rohtak, the electoral battle between BJP’s Manmohan Goyal and Independent candidate Sita Ram Sachdeva, ended in victory for the former with a margin of 14,776 votes.Mr. Sachdeva claimed he was supported by Mr. Hooda and his son Deepender Hooda.
A reason to cheer
Coming on the heels of the loss in the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, the victory gave the saffron party reason to cheer, indicating that it had its traditional urban vote bank intact, but political analysts cautioned that the win was a “forgone conclusion” with the presence of an overwhelming number of Punjabi voters in the five cities. The results showed the Congress suffered because of in-fighting and the INLD appeared weakened after the recent split.