In a booster ahead of next year’s Assembly polls, the BJP won seven out of 11 mayoral posts in Madhya Pradesh civic elections, whose results were declared on Sunday. The Congress won three, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), contesting the civic body polls for the first time in the State, will now have one mayor in the State.
The election also saw another debutant, the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeens (AIMIM), winning at least one corporator seat in Khandwa and being blamed by the Congress for its loss in the Muslim-dominated Burhanpur municipal corporation, which the BJP won by a slender margin.
The 11 municipal corporations — Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Sagar, Satna, Singrauli, Chhindwara, Khandwa, Burhanpur and Ujjain — had gone to polls in the first phase of elections on July 6. All 11 corporations had sitting BJP mayors.
The ruling BJP has retained Bhopal, Indore, Burhanpur, Satna, Ujjain, Khandwa and Sagar. The Congress emerged victorious in three — Jabalpur, Gwalior and Chhindwara — while the AAP’s Rani Agrawal won the mayor's election in Singrauli, the only city where the AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal had campaigned in these elections.
Modi thanks voters
The celebrations in the BJP camp were led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who thanked all voters "for reposing their faith in BJP in Madhya Pradesh civic polls”. “This victory is a symbol of the unwavering faith of the people in CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government. Congratulations to party workers and all the winning candidates," he tweeted on Sunday evening.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who hailed the victory as "historic", claimed that the party had won over 80% seats in the nagar panchayat and nagar parishad polls and also performed very well in the 11 municipal corporations. The party’s State president, V.D. Sharma, too, said the BJP had won a record number of corporator posts and he credited the party workers and its booth management strategy.
For the Congress, its State president and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath termed the results encouraging. “We have won three mayoral elections — in Chhindwara, Jabalpur and Gwalior. A large number of our corporators have won the civic body elections too. We won the top post of Gwalior city after 50 years," said Mr. Nath, while accusing the BJP of winning the elections with the help of police and administration.
‘Grand entry’
Hailing the victory of Ms. Agrawal, who defeated her BJP rival Chandrapratap Vishwakarma by a margin of 9,231 votes, the AAP dubbed its debut as "grand entry" and an indication that people were liking the party's "honest politics of work".
"Many congratulations to AAP candidate Rani Agrawal ji, who won the post of mayor in the Singrauli Municipal Corporation of Madhya Pradesh, and all the winners and party workers," the party convener Mr. Kejriwal said in a tweet in Hindi.
Despite the skewed numbers, there are gains for the Congress that improved its tally and gave a tough fight to the BJP in Bhopal, Indore and Burhanpur while wresting back Chhindwara, a traditional stronghold and Mr. Nath’s home turf. It, however, has reasons to worry ahead of the Assembly polls for failing to make more gains. The three sitting MLAs fielded by the Congress lost the elections.
Loss in Gwalior
While the AAP’s victory will be watched closely by the two major parties, the BJP has some additional concerns too, especially the loss in Gwalior where candidate selection had become an issue following reports of disagreement between Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Jyotiraditya Scindia, both heavyweights from the Gwalior-Chambal region.
The General Secretary in-charge of Communications, All India Congress Committee, Jairam Ramesh, tweeted, ”Nothing made me more happy than the victory of the Congress in the Gwalior Municipal Corporation elections. Superb performance! … The BJP has 'crashed' here,” an apparent dig at Mr. Scindia who switched loyalties two years ago, causing a fall of the Congress government led by Mr. Nath.
“The BJP’s initial internal assessment for Singrauli is that Ms. Agrawal gained from the long association she and her family has had with the BJP in the past. Also, fielding an OBC candidate in an unreserved seat may have worked against us. Gwalior is a case of infight and we have to get our house in order before the next elections and Jabalpur is a miss that we are still analysing,” said a senior BJP leader.
Mayoral polls in the first phase were held in Burhanpur, Satna, Khandwa, Sagar, Singrauli, Jabalpur, Gwalior, Chhindwara, Indore, Bhopal and Ujjain.
BJP candidates Madhuri Patel, Yogesh Tamarkar, Amrita Amar Yadav, Sangeeta Tiwari emerged victorious in the mayoral elections to Burhanpur, Satna, Khandwa and Sagar in respectively, while AAP candidate Rani Agrawal won the city Singrauli city’s top post, officials said.
Congress candidates were leading in three other municipal corporations - Jabalpur, Gwalior and Chhindwara, they said.
Ms. Patel, Mr. Tamarkar, Ms. Yadav and Ms. Tiwari defeated their nearest rivals from the Congress - Shahnaz Ansari, Siddharth Kushwaha, Asha Mishra and Nidhi Jain - by a margin of 542, 24,916, 19,763 and 12,665 votes, respectively, in Burhanpur, Satna, Khandwa and Sagar.
AAP opens account
In Singrauli, AAP candidate Rani Agrawal defeated her nearest BJP rival Chandrapratap Vishwakarma by a margin of 9,231 votes. This is the first time that the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is contesting civic elections in MP. Mr. Kejriwal had recently held a roadshow in support of Agrawal.
BJP candidate Pushyamitra Bhargava has established a handsome lead of 27,965 votes over his nearest Congress rival Sanjay Shukla in Indore.
Likewise, the saffron party’s candidates Matli Rai and Mukesh Tatwal were ahead of their nearest Congress rivals Vibha Patel and Mahesh Parmar, respectively, by a margin of 23,953 and 3,736 votes in Bhopal and Ujjain.
Congress candidates Jagat Bahadur Singh, Shobha Shikarwar and Vikram Ahaka were leading over their BJP rivals Jitendra Jamdar, Suman Sharma and Anand Dhurve by a margin of 40,000, 10992, 459 votes in Jabalpur, Gwalior and Chhindwara respctively.
