LUCKNOW: In the UP urban local body polls, the ruling BJP put up an impressive show swept winning all 17 mayoral seats. In 2017, the party had bagged 14 of the total 16 seats, losing two to the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). However, this time, the Opposition failed to open an account in municipal corporations’ mayoral contest.
Leaving his rivals behind, chief minister Yogi Adityanath addressed over 50 rallies in 12 days to set the tone for the civic polls, unlike SP chief Akhilesh Yadav who ended up addressing just nine poll rallies in all. The BSP chief did not find it important to reach out to voters and Congress leadership was preoccupied with the Karnataka campaign.BJP not only swept the mayoral seats but also improved its tally on 199 Nagar Palika (Municipal Boards) seats and 544 Nagar Panchayat seats.
As per the political pundits, the split in Muslim votes among SP, BSP and AIMIM played a significant role in BJP’s victory on several seats, especially in west UP. In Meerut, Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM threw a surprise by emerging as the main contender of the BJP, pushing the Samajwadi Party to the number three position in the poll for the mayor’s post. AIMIM even won two wards in Meerut and one in the temple town of Ayodhya till the result last came in.
However, in this election, the BJP tried to break its image and perception of being an anti-Muslim party by giving tickets to over 350 Muslim candidates for different posts at Municipal Corporations, Municipal Boards and Nagar panchayat level.
On the other, the BSP had fielded 11 Muslims for the 17 mayoral posts. At the same time, the independents who made up 66 per cent of the total candidates in the fray, played spoilsport for many political players like SP, BSP and Congress.
Among the political parties, BJP had fielded the highest number of candidates – 10,758, followed by the SP (5231), BSP (3787), Congress (2994) and Aam Admi Party (2447). The political experts felt that the opposition did not get enough candidates to file in several constituencies. The BJP’s comprehensive win in the civic polls elections is attributed to the carpet bombing by UP CM who left nothing to chance undertaking a whirlwind tour of the state.
Just a year ahead of the 2024 general elections, the UP Civic polls result proved to be a setback to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s bid to project himself as a potent challenger to the BJP. Even he seemed to have lost the dedicated support of the Muslim clout which had stood solidly behind him in the 2022 UP assembly polls.
In Moradabad, where SP has ST Hassan as its MP, the party was relegated to the number four position in the mayoral poll. Similarly, in Sambhal, represented in Lok Sabha by SP MP Shafiqur Rehman Barq, the party lost badly.
Although the SP couldn’t win any seats in 2017 as well, this time it was hoping to win some in West UP owing to its alliance with Rashtriya Lok Dal but it made no difference to SP’s performance. Calling it the biggest victory of the BJP in UP civic polls so far, CM Yogi Adityanath attributed the landslide win to ‘good governance’ and a ‘sense of security’ besides PM Narendra Modi’s leadership and guidance, here on Saturday.