UP municipal election results 2023: Saffron tsunami sweeps across urban pockets | Lucknow News – Times of India
Lucknow: Riding on a campaign blitzkrieg led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Bharatiya Janata Party swept all 17 mayoral seats in the state on Saturday. In 2017, it had 14 out of 16. Yogi addressed 50 rallies in 12 days to set the tone. The split in Muslim votes — among SP, BSP and AIMIM — also played a significant role in BJP’s victory on several seats, especially in west UP.
In 2017, BSP had won Aligarh and Meerut mayoral seats. This time, its candidates were ahead in Saharanpur and Agra for quite some time, but eventually lost to the BJP candidates. Like last time, both SP and Congress failed to open their accounts. BJP not only did well on mayoral seats, but also significantly improved its tally on 199 Nagar Palika seats and 544 Nagar Panchayat seats.
The BJP winners on mayoral seats were Sushma Kharakwal in Lucknow, Girishpati Tripathi in Ayodhya, Ashok Tiwari in Varanasi, Sunita Dayal in Ghaziabad, Umesh Gautam in Bareilly, Archana Verma in Shahjahanpur, Prashant Singha in Aligarh, Pramila Pandey in Kanpur, Harikant Ahluwalia in Meerut, Bihari Lal Arya in Jhansi, Ganesh Kesarwani in Prayagraj, Mangalesh Srivastav in Gorakhpur, Hemlata Kushwaha in Agra, Vinod Kumar Agarwal in Mathura, Vinod Agarwal in Moradabad, Dr Ajay Kumar in Saharanpur and Kamini Rathore in Firozabad.
Out of these, Pramila Pandey in Kanpur, Umesh Gautam in Bareilly and Vinod Agarwal in Moradabad have won their seats second time on the trot. Meerut’s victor Harikant Ahluwalia has been the city mayor in the past. The newly constructed Shahajahanpur mayoral seat went to Archana Gautam. Interestingly, she was Samajwadi Party’s official candidate, but switched sides just a day before the last day of nomination. She won by a margin of over 30,000 votes.
The BJP’s comprehensive win in the UP’s ULB elections reinforced CM Yogi Adityanath’s charisma in the state. Leaving nothing to chance but confident of BJP’s performance in the local body polls, Yogi undertook a whirlwind tour of the state, ramping up the campaign to levels seen only at the time of assembly or general elections. His efforts and confidence paid off with BJP winning all 17 mayoral seats, both bypolls and increasing its overall vote share. With this performance, Yogi has not just sealed his position as the undisputed face of the party in UP and got a stamp of approval from the public for his government’s performance but this can also be seen as the party’s first major step towards the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
BJP’s spectacular win was in a good measure the result of the party’s well-oiled organisational machinery. Following Yogi’s footsteps, deputy chief ministers Keshav Maurya and Brajesh Pathak addressed 58 and 54 rallies respectively. “Impeccable coordination by state chief Bhupendra Chaudhary and organisation secretary Dharmpal also played a decisive role,” says a party insider. The victory, experts said, has added zing to the party’s preparation for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
However, a year before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the ULB polls results effected a setback to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s bid to project himself as a potent challenger to the BJP. He deliberately kept himself away from the campaign, addressing just nine rallies to avoid a counter-polarisation of Hindu votes, but his party failed to open its account on mayoral seats. Although the SP couldn’t win any seat in 2017 as well, this time it was hoping to win some in west UP.
Unlike in the 2022 assembly polls, there was no complete consolidation of Muslim votes in the favour of SP. On some seats represented by the party’s MPs, like Moradabad and Sambhal, it couldn’t finish even the runner-up. BSP had fielded 11 Muslim candidates on 11 out of 17 mayoral seats, which caused a split in Muslim votes. Besides, the AIMIM candidates took away a good chunk of minority votes on seats like Meerut, eventually benefitting the BJP.
In Saharanpur, Dr Ajay Kumar of the BJP despite being a political novice managed to win mainly because of a split in Muslim votes. He defeated BSP’s Khadeeja Masood, the sister-in-law of strong BSP leader Imran Masood. Experts were unsure of the BJP candidate’s win despite Dr Ajay’s clean image in the city. However, they believe that the BJP’s win became easy here after Akhilesh’s last-minute push and a roadshow to drum up support that became the root cause of the split in Muslim votes making way for BJP’s win.
In 2017, BSP had won Aligarh and Meerut mayoral seats. This time, its candidates were ahead in Saharanpur and Agra for quite some time, but eventually lost to the BJP candidates. Like last time, both SP and Congress failed to open their accounts. BJP not only did well on mayoral seats, but also significantly improved its tally on 199 Nagar Palika seats and 544 Nagar Panchayat seats.
The BJP winners on mayoral seats were Sushma Kharakwal in Lucknow, Girishpati Tripathi in Ayodhya, Ashok Tiwari in Varanasi, Sunita Dayal in Ghaziabad, Umesh Gautam in Bareilly, Archana Verma in Shahjahanpur, Prashant Singha in Aligarh, Pramila Pandey in Kanpur, Harikant Ahluwalia in Meerut, Bihari Lal Arya in Jhansi, Ganesh Kesarwani in Prayagraj, Mangalesh Srivastav in Gorakhpur, Hemlata Kushwaha in Agra, Vinod Kumar Agarwal in Mathura, Vinod Agarwal in Moradabad, Dr Ajay Kumar in Saharanpur and Kamini Rathore in Firozabad.
Out of these, Pramila Pandey in Kanpur, Umesh Gautam in Bareilly and Vinod Agarwal in Moradabad have won their seats second time on the trot. Meerut’s victor Harikant Ahluwalia has been the city mayor in the past. The newly constructed Shahajahanpur mayoral seat went to Archana Gautam. Interestingly, she was Samajwadi Party’s official candidate, but switched sides just a day before the last day of nomination. She won by a margin of over 30,000 votes.
The BJP’s comprehensive win in the UP’s ULB elections reinforced CM Yogi Adityanath’s charisma in the state. Leaving nothing to chance but confident of BJP’s performance in the local body polls, Yogi undertook a whirlwind tour of the state, ramping up the campaign to levels seen only at the time of assembly or general elections. His efforts and confidence paid off with BJP winning all 17 mayoral seats, both bypolls and increasing its overall vote share. With this performance, Yogi has not just sealed his position as the undisputed face of the party in UP and got a stamp of approval from the public for his government’s performance but this can also be seen as the party’s first major step towards the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
BJP’s spectacular win was in a good measure the result of the party’s well-oiled organisational machinery. Following Yogi’s footsteps, deputy chief ministers Keshav Maurya and Brajesh Pathak addressed 58 and 54 rallies respectively. “Impeccable coordination by state chief Bhupendra Chaudhary and organisation secretary Dharmpal also played a decisive role,” says a party insider. The victory, experts said, has added zing to the party’s preparation for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
However, a year before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the ULB polls results effected a setback to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s bid to project himself as a potent challenger to the BJP. He deliberately kept himself away from the campaign, addressing just nine rallies to avoid a counter-polarisation of Hindu votes, but his party failed to open its account on mayoral seats. Although the SP couldn’t win any seat in 2017 as well, this time it was hoping to win some in west UP.
Unlike in the 2022 assembly polls, there was no complete consolidation of Muslim votes in the favour of SP. On some seats represented by the party’s MPs, like Moradabad and Sambhal, it couldn’t finish even the runner-up. BSP had fielded 11 Muslim candidates on 11 out of 17 mayoral seats, which caused a split in Muslim votes. Besides, the AIMIM candidates took away a good chunk of minority votes on seats like Meerut, eventually benefitting the BJP.
In Saharanpur, Dr Ajay Kumar of the BJP despite being a political novice managed to win mainly because of a split in Muslim votes. He defeated BSP’s Khadeeja Masood, the sister-in-law of strong BSP leader Imran Masood. Experts were unsure of the BJP candidate’s win despite Dr Ajay’s clean image in the city. However, they believe that the BJP’s win became easy here after Akhilesh’s last-minute push and a roadshow to drum up support that became the root cause of the split in Muslim votes making way for BJP’s win.
