BJP adds third engine in UP, sweeps all 17 mayoral polls

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party swept the mayoral elections in Uttar Pradesh winning the posts all the 17 municipal corporations on Saturday. 

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who claimed victory in all the 17 municipal corporations, thanked the people of Uttar Pradesh and congratulated BJP workers for forming a "triple-engine government" in the state after the party's "biggest victory" in the urban local body polls.

The party's candidates won in Varanasi, Lucknow, Ayodhya, Jhansi, Bareilly, Mathura-Vrindavan, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Shahjahanpur, Ghaziabad, Agra, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Firozabad and Meerut.

The urban local body polls were held in two phases -- on May 4 and May 11 -- to elect 17 mayors and 1,401 corporators. Nineteen corporators were elected unopposed, according to the State Election Commission.

Of the 17 municipal corporations, the BJP repeated its candidates only in Kanpur city, Bareilly and Moradabad and all three proved to be successful. 

Adityanath said the win was a result of better coordination between the government and the organisation.

Flanked by Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak at a press conference at the BJP headquarters in Lucknow, Adityanath said the BJP has won all the 17 municipal corporations for the first time.

"In all 17 municipal corporations, voters have reposed faith in BJP," he said.

Earlier, in a tweet, the chief minister said, "Hearty congratulations to all the dedicated and hardworking workers of the BJP and the people of Uttar Pradesh, who love good governance, on the massive victory of the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh municipal elections."

"This massive victory reflects the successful guidance of respected Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji and immense public faith in the pro-people, developmental and all-inclusive policies of the double-engine government," he added.

Adityanath had led the campaign for the urban local body polls, holding several election meetings across the state. During the campaign, he had repeatedly urged voters to add a third wheel or third engine to the "double-engine" government in Uttar Pradesh.

In the Lucknow Municipal Corporation, the BJP's Sushma Kharkwal won the mayoral election. According to the State Election Commission, Kharkwal bagged 5,02,660 votes while Vandana Mishra of the Samajwadi Party got 298519 votes.

In Varanasi, the BJP's Ashok Kumar Tiwari won the mayor's seat defeating his Samajwadi Party rival Om Prakash Singh by a margin on 1,33,137 votes. While Tiwari bagged 2,91,852 votes, Singh got 1,58,715 votes.

In the temple town of Ayodhya, BJP candidate Girish Pati Tripathi won the mayoral election, defeating his nearest rival Ashish of the Samajwadi Party by a margin of 35,638 votes.

Tripathi bagged 77,494 votes. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) candidate Rehan secured the third position pocketing 15,107 votes. BSP candidate Ram Murti got 12,852 votes and Pramila Rajput of the Congress 4,084 votes, according to the State Election Commission (SEC).

In Jhansi, the BJP's Bihari Lal Arya bagged 1,23,503 votes and defeated his nearest rival Arvind Kumar of the Congress by a margin of 83,587 votes.

The Bahujan Samaj Party candidate came third, while the Samajwadi Party secured the fourth position.

In Bareilly, Umesh Gautam of the BJP secured more than 1.67 lakh votes to defeat independent candidate Iqbal Singh Tomar by a margin of 56,343 votes.

The temple town of Mathura-Vrindavan also witnessed a saffron bloom with BJP candidate Vinod Kumar Agarwal bagging more than 1.45 lakh votes and defeating his nearest rival Raja Mohatsim Ahmed of the BSP by a gap of more than 1.10 lakh votes.

In Moradabad, the BJP's Vinod Agarwal (over 1.21 lakh votes) defeated Mohammad Rizwan of the Congress (over 1.17 lakh votes) by a margin of 3,642 votes.

In Saharanpur, Ajay Kumar of the BJP defeated Khadija Masood of the BSP by a margin of 8,031 votes.

In Prayagraj, Umesh Chandra Ganesh Kesarwani bagged more than 2.35 lakh votes and defeated Ajay Kumar Srivastava of the Samajwadi Party, who got over 1.06 lakh votes.

Aligarh, which was won by the BSP in the previous mayoral election, saw a saffron surge with the BJP's Prashant Singhal securing more than 1.93 lakh votes to defeat his nearest rival Zameer Ullah Khan of the SP by a margin of 60,902 votes.

Shahjahanpur, which voted for the first time to elect its mayor, witnessed BJP's Archana Verma clinching victory on the mayor's seat by bagging 80,762 votes and defeating Nikhat Iqbal of the Congress, who got 50,484 votes.

In Ghaziabad, the BJP's Sunita Dayal secured 3,50,905 votes to defeat Nisara Khan of the BSP, who got only 63,249 votes.

Pushpa Rawat of the Congress came third (with 58,951 votes), while SP's Poonam Yadav came a distant fourth (with 57,608 votes).

Agra candidate Hemlata Diwakar won the seat with a margin of 1,08,468 votes over the BSP candidate while Kanpur candidate Pramila Pandey defeated her Samajwadi Party rival by a margin of 1,77,846 votes.

BJP candidate in Gorakhpur, the home turf of CM Yogi Adityanath, Manglesh Srivastava posted a win over his Samajwadi Party rival by a margin of 60,876 votes and in Firozabad, Kamini Rathore won the seat for the BJP by a margin of 26,969 votes defeating the Samajwadi Party candidate.

In Meerut, Harikant Ahluwalia of the BJP won the mayoral election by a margin of 1,07,406 votes over the AIMIM candidate. The Samajwadi Party candidate came third and the nominee of the BSP, which had won the seat last time, came fourth.

Meerut and Aligarh had Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) mayors in 2017, while the BJP ruled the rest.

In the two-phase urban local body elections, voting was also held to elect 198 chairpersons and 5,260 members of nagar palika parishads, 542 chairpersons of nagar panchayats and 7,104 members of nagar panchayats.

In all, 162 public representatives were elected unopposed, while there were as many as 83,378 candidates in the poll fray for 14,522 posts.

In the urban local body elections, 53 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in the second phase covering 38 districts on May 11, while the voter turnout in the first phase on May 4 was 52 per cent covering 37 districts of the state.

According to the State Election Commission, 4.32 crore people were eligible to cast their votes in the urban local body polls. In 2017, the polls were held in three phases and the overall polling percentage was 53 per cent.