After the results of the state assembly elections in West Bengal, the Uttar Pradesh panchayat election results have surprised the ruling BJP as it seems to be struggling in several districts including Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
SP won panchayat polls or BJP?
The Samajwadi Party has claimed a big victory over the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh panchayat polls and had won more than half of the posts while alleging the administration was not handing over certificates to its candidates. However, the BJP has claimed that they have got the maximum number of seats in Uttar Pradesh panchayat polls.
Besides the BJP and the Samajwadi Party, the Aam Aadmi Party too claimed big win in UP panchayat polls. The party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said 70 candidates backed by the AAP were elected as zila panchayat members and over 200 AAP members bagged village pradhan posts in Uttar Pradesh panchayat elections. The Bahujan Samaj Party won 5.
Who won in Ayodhya?
Ayodhya, where the BJP’s pet project of Ram Mandir construction began last year, has 40 zila panchayat seats. The Samajwadi Party claimed to have won 24 seats while the BJP has managed to win only 6 seats and 12 seats have been won by independent candidates. The BJP had refused tickets to some of its candidates in Ayodhya after which 13 of them filed nominations independently. However, BJP sources have claimed that the party has the support of the independent candidates as well.
How did BJP perform in the Prime Minister’s Lok Sabha constituency?
In PM Modi’s constituency Varanasi, the performance of BJP is also not very good. After losing the MLC elections, the BJP seems to be struggling in Uttar Pradesh zila panchayat elections as well. Out of 40 zila panchayat seats, the BJP seems to have bagged only 8 seats as of now while Samajwadi Party has claimed that it has won 14 seats and BSP has won five seats.
Apna Dal(S) has also bagged three seats while Aam Aadmi Party and SBSP, led by Om Prakash Rajbhar, have bagged one seat each. Three independent candidates have also won the race.
In 2015 also, the BJP had lost the zila panchayat seat but the party took it back after the formation of Yogi Adityanath government in the state.
Who has claimed to have won Mathura?
In Mathura, Bahujan Samaj Party sources have claimed to win a maximum of 12 seats, Rashtriya Lok Dal has claimed 8 seats while BJP seems to be winning just 9 seats as of now. The Samajwadi Party has claimed to win 1 seat while 3 independent candidates have also won. The BJP sources have claimed that independent candidates are with them.
The poor performance of the ruling party in Mathura is said to be because of the farmers’ protest.
Panchayat polls were held in Uttar Pradesh in four phases which ended April 29. The election was held at four levels of panchayat bodies — gram panchayat, gram pradhan, block panchayat and zila panchayat. The panchayat polls in Uttar Pradesh are not contested on party symbols. However, all the parties managed candidate selection and election campaigns in a centralised manner this time around. The counting of votes began on Sunday morning in more than 825 centres across 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh. All seats have not been declared by the state election commission.
Over 8.69 lakh posts were up for grabs in these polls. Of these posts, more than 7.32 lakh seats were in the gram panchayat wards, 58,176 in the gram panchayats, 75,852 in the block panchayats and 3,050 in the zila panchayats.
Read Also: Twitter permanently suspends Kangana Ranaut account
The state election commission said over 3.19 lakh candidates were elected unopposed in the panchayat election. Votes were being counted to declare results for over 3.27 lakh panchayat posts. The rest of the posts remained uncontested, the commission said.