CHANDIGARH: The ruling Congress party won the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation by winning 62 out of 95 wards. The opposition parties barely touched the double-digit mark while the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) won 11 seats and it’s alliance partner BJP got 10 seats which had the reigns of the corporation since the last two terms.
The Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) suffered a major set back as it won seven seats out of the 59 they contested and its alliance partner Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won only one seat. AAP contested the corporation elections for the first time.
The only AAP candidate who won was Balwinder Kaur, wife of AAP district president Daljit Singh Grewal from ward number 11. While the independent candidates won four wards.
As many as 494 candidates had contested the polls held on February 24 followed by re-polling in two booths yesterday.
Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has hailed the Ludhiana MC results as a clear vindication of the Congress government’s policies and an endorsement of the pro-people initiatives undertaken by it in the past one year.
Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar and Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu also joined Amarinder in lauding the performance of the party in these MC polls, which they said marked the total annihilation of the opposition parties in the state.
While the Chief Minister congratulated the party workers and leaders, including Cabinet Minister, Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa, and Ludhiana MP, Ravneet Bittu, for steering the sweeping victory for the Congress, Jakhar said it had once again underscored the faith that the people of Punjab had in Amarinder’s leadership.
Amarinder described it as the proverbial last nail in the political coffins of SAD, AAP and other parties in the fray.
With the AAP being reduced to a single seat (out of 30 contested), the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) relegated to a poor second (winning just 11 out of 55 contested, and the BJP losing all but 10 of the 47 seats contested, it was clear that the political antics of these parties since their defeat in the Assembly polls a year ago had failed to impress the people, Jakhar said.
The Congress has already swept MC polls of Amritsar, Patiala and Jalandhar recently.