By Shilpi Sen: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has created a new history in the Urban Body Elections in Uttar Pradesh. The party, which fought the elections with the slogan of adding a third engine to its “double-engine” government in the populous state, has hoisted its saffron flag on all 17 mayoral seats. The BJP has also won the corporator posts of these Municipal Corporations and secured an absolute majority in the Municipal Corporation Houses.
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.
BJP’s victory in the UP municipal elections is likely to boost the confidence of the workers for the crucial Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
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BJP THEN & NOW
During the 2017 UP municipal elections, the BJP won 14 out of the 16 municipal corporation seats, while the BSP secured victory in Meerut and Aligarh.
In 2018, Shahjahanpur in UP was designated as a municipal corporation. In the recent UP urban body elections, the BJP aimed to secure victory in Shahjahanpur while also retaining control over the existing seats, employing a strategic approach.
From the beginning, BJP’s strategy was decided while keeping in view – the caste equation of each seat. Looking back at the 14 seats the party had won in 2018, it made a note of the municipal corporations where the opponent could be overwhelming.
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BJP’s GAMEPLAN
One of the strategies of the BJP was to bring influential leaders from other parties, especially successful candidates into its fold.
BJP’s Archana Verma who won the Shahjahanpur seat this year was a former member of the Samajwadi Party (SP). She had joined the saffron party last month. Although she was the mayoral candidate for Shahjahanpur from Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, she joined the BJP at the last moment.
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BJP’s BET ON PASMANDA MUSLIMS
This time, the BJP also played its cards on Pasmanda Muslims. Muslim candidates were fielded in various municipal corporations and municipal panchayats. This move proved to be a step in showcasing the party’s image and acceptability while indicating its future strategy. In city elections, educated Muslim youth in several places were seen leaning towards the BJP. However, the assessment in terms of votes is yet to be determined.
Benfitting from the same, BJP not only won Shahjahanpur, but snatched the Aligarh and Meerut seats from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and made a clean sweep in the Municipal Corporation.
An elated Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath thanked people and congratulated BJP workers on the party’s massive victory in the urban local body polls and for forming a “triple-engine government” in the state.
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“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,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.
The urban local body elections took place in two phases, encompassing the election of 198 chairpersons and 5,260 members for nagar palika parishads, 542 chairpersons for nagar panchayats, and 7,104 members for nagar panchayats through voting.