As the counting of votes for the civic body polls held across the state of Uttar Pradesh is in its final leg BJP is emerging as the undisputed winner. At the time of publishing this report, BJP won all 17 municipal corporation seats of the state.
While the Bahujan Samajwadi Party was ahead on 1 seat (Saharanpur municipal seat), Congress and Samajwadi Party have failed to secure even one seat out of the 17 municipal corporation seats in the state.
Elections for 199 nagar palika parishads, 544 Nagar panchayats, and 17 municipal corporations were held in two phases on May 4 and May 11 respectively. Out of the 4.32 crore eligible voters, about 52% exercised their right to vote in the first phase of voting while 53% did so in the second phase, according to Election Commission data.
The polling was held with both EVMs and ballot papers for a total of 14,684 posts. This includes 17 posts of mayor, 1,420 of corporators, 199 of nagar palika parishad chairpersons, 5,327 of nagar palika parishad members, 544 of Nagar panchayat chairpersons and 7,178 posts of Nagar panchayat members.
Notably, there were previously 16 mayoral seats in Uttar Pradesh, but this year there are 17 due to Shahjahanpur choosing its first mayor after becoming a municipal corporation in 2018.
The outcomes of the ULB polls are particularly important this year as the party that wins the majority of seats will use them as a platform to bolster support before the vital general elections of 2024. In terms of strategic significance in national politics, Uttar Pradesh is the state with the most representation in the Lok Sabha, with 80 Members of Parliament.
In the 2017 ULB polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to win 14 out of 16 mayoral seats. Two seats, Meerut and Aligarh, went to BSP. This time, Shahjanapur has been added taking the total number of mayoral seats in the state to 17.
It may be recalled that during the second round of voting, a video linked to the election from Meerut went viral on social media. Here, the attempt to sway the electorate with the promise of Biryani failed since there was not enough of it, and the crowd left with the containers.
Hanifa Ansari, a Dhawai Nagar resident and councillor candidate for the Samajwadi Party, is contesting from Ward 80 in the Nauchandi neighbourhood of the Meerut police station. She prepared biryani in an effort to win over voters and a massive throng came over to partake in the feast. The food eventually ran out though, and in a funny turn of events, people picked the biryani pot and tried to flee with it.
