JAIPUR: Congress seems to be in a comfortable position to form the board in Heritage Municipal Corporation (HMC) after eight independent candidates extended their support to the party on Wednesday.
After securing 47 out of 100 seats, the party required 4 more seats for an absolute majority. The party now claims to have 55 candidates including independents to form the board. Cabinet minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said, “Out of 11 candidates, 8 have extended support to the Congress. Till the elections, all the newly elected candidates with stay with our candidates and participate in the strategy making exercise.”
The BJP continued to accuse the Congress for bifurcating the wards on the basis of vote bank. BJP senior party member said, “The delimitation was based on polarisation. Congress divided the wards on Hindu & Muslim proportion and played dirty politics.”
In these elections, there were many candidates who did not win but ruined the calculations of the party candidates. Moreover, NOTA also played a spoilsport and ended the perspective of many candidates to become councillors. People who boycotted the elections supported the candidates who contested under their banner.
In Walled City area, independents got 1,09,114 votes out of 5,39,368 votes. This 20.22 per cent of vote share could have made a major difference both the parties. Abhishek Jain, spokesperson of Sanyukt Abhibhawak Sangh said, “We boycotted both the major parties and supported 10 candidates in Jaipur Heritage as our demands including school fee high were not met. People have expressed their anger against these major parties. More than 10,000 people opted for NOTA. Major parties will have to take public demand seriously as outcome will be different in coming years.”