CHANDIGARH: Four months after winning the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, the Congress today wrested the Shimla Municipal Corporation, one of the oldest urban municipalities in the country, from the BJP with a two-thirds majority. It won 24 out of the 34 wards, while the saffron party won nine wards, CPM bagged only one and AAP failed to open its account.
Congress contested these civic body polls on the basis of the performance of its four-month-old state government while the BJP contested on the performance of the outgoing Shimla MC, which it governed
from 2017 to 2022 and in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The implementation of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) was a major factor in favour of Congress as the SMC has the highest number of government employees. The grand old party also had an advantage in the civic polls as assembly constituencies of two cabinet ministers, Aniruddh Singh from Kasumpti and Vikramaditya Singh of Shimla Rural and the constituency of Congress MLA Harish Janartha (Shimla Urban) constituted the SMC area.