Yogi­-powered BJP sweeps all 17 mayoral polls in UP

LUCKNOW: BJP rode UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s campaign blitzkrieg to sweep Saturday the state’s all 17 mayoral seats in urban civic polls, bettering its tally of 14 of the 16 posts in 2017.
“This is BJP’s historic victory because of its committed workers and party functionaries,” said Yogi, who addressed 50 rallies in 12 days ahead of the polls.
A split in Muslim votes — among SP, BSP and AIMIM — played a pivotal role in BJP’s victory in several segments, especially in western UP.

BJP also significantly improved its tally in 199 nagar palika parishad (NPP) seats and 544 nagar panchayat (NP) seats. The vote count hasn’t ended and, according to the latest reports, BJP was poised to win more than 95 NPP seats, while SP led in 30 seats and BSP in 22. In elections to nagar panchayat chairman seats, BJP won/led in 203, SP took 83 seats, BSP registered a win/lead in 40.
It raised its tally of corporators and councillors in municipal corporations and nagar palikas. In Lucknow, it was poised to win nearly 80 of the 110 corporator seats.
BJP’s vote share saw a sharp rise in all the 17 seats. Its candidates bagged more than 45% votes on 13 seats, while four of them got the support of more than 50% voters.
In 2017, BSP had won Aligarh and Meerut mayoral seats. This time, its candidates were ahead in Saharanpur and Agra for quite some time, but eventually lost to BJP candidates. Like last time, both SP and Congress failed to open their accounts.
The BJP winners for mayoral posts are Sushma Kharakwal in Lucknow, Girishpati Tripathi in Ayodhya, Ashok Tiwari in Varanasi, Sunita Dayal in Ghaziabad, Umesh Gautam in Bareilly, Archana Verma in Shahjahanpur, Prashant Singha in Aligarh, Pramila Pandey in Kanpur, Harikant Ahluwalia in Meerut, Bihari Lal Arya in Jhansi, Ganesh Kesarwani in Prayagraj, Mangalesh Srivastav in Gorakhpur, Hemlata Kushwaha in Agra, Vinod Kumar Agarwal in Mathura, Vinod Agarwal in Moradabad, Dr Ajay Kumar in Saharanpur and Kamini Rathore in Firozabad.
Sunita Dayal was the biggest winner, defeating her nearest rival, Nisara Khan of BSP, by over 2.87 lakh votes, or nearly 59% of votes polled.
In Meerut, Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM candidate Mohammad Anas took an early lead, surprising many, although BJP’s Harikant Ahluwalia, a former mayor, finally took the race.
BJP’s organisational machinery moved as a cohesive unit and Saturday’s landslide gave the party the impetus to segue into the 2024 Lok Sabha elections mode.
Following Yogi’s footsteps, deputy CMs Keshav Maurya and Brajesh Pathak addressed 58 and 54 rallies, respectively. Yogi and a host of senior party members, including the two deputy CMs and BJP national vice-president Radha Mohan Singh, celebrated the victory at the state party office with sweets.
Watch UP: BJP sweeps municipal elections, CM Yogi Adityanath celebrates victory