The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has swept the urban local body polls in Uttarakhand, winning ten out of eleven mayoral seats to emerge as the dominant party in the municipal councils and nagar panchayats. While the BJP won 10 mayoral seats, an independent candidate bagged the remaining seat, State Election Commissioner Sushil Kumar told PTI.
Meanwhile, the counting that began on Saturday is still underway, and the results of all the 100 urban local bodies that went to the poll on January 23 are likely to be declared by late afternoon, Kumar said.
Polling for 11 municipal corporations, 43 municipal councils, and 46 nagar panchayats was held by ballot on Thursday with 65.4 percent of voters exercising their franchise. A total of 5,405 candidates, including 72 running for 11 mayoral posts, 445 for municipal council chairperson, and 4,888 for municipal councillors and members, were in the fray.
The mayoral seats won by the BJP included Dehradun (Saurabh Thapliyal), Rishikesh (Shambhu Paswan), Kashipur (Dipak Bali), Haridwar (Kiran Jaisdal), Roorkee (Anita Devi), Kotdwar (Shailendra Rawat), Rudrapur (Vikas Sharma), Almora (Ajay Verma), Pithoragarh (Kalpana Devlal), and Haldwani (Gajraj Bisht).
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Arti Bhandari, an independent nominee, won the Srinagar mayoral seat in Pauri district, Kumar said.
The Congress party, which won the two mayoral seats in the last urban local body election held in 2018, drew a blank this time. In the municipal polls too, it finished third behind the BJP and independents. In the run-up to the urban local body polls, the BJP had sought votes in the name of a triple-engine government to keep the pace of development "uninterrupted" in the state.
As the results showed a sweep by the saffron party, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami congratulated the winning party candidates and asked them to speed up development works in their respective areas.
"Heartiest congratulations to all the winning candidates of BJP. People have elected capable public representatives. Now it is the job of all the elected representatives to speed up development in their respective areas and strengthen the system.
"Our aim is to implement the concept of clean and green city on the ground through municipal bodies so that tourists coming to the state from across the country and abroad return with positive and inspiring experiences," Dhami said after unfurling the Tricolour at the state BJP office to mark the 76th Republic Day.
He also thanked the state election commission for holding the polls peacefully.
Uttarakhand BJP chief Mahendra Bhatt termed the poll verdict another stamp of approval by the people on the policies and programmes of the BJP governments in the state and at the Centre.
"The verdict is a trailer of BJP's third consecutive victory in the assembly polls due in 2027," he said.
(With input from agencies)