Jaipur: Giving Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma and the party organisation a strong result in the latest round of local elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has secured control of 199 urban local bodies in Rajasthan. The outcome comes about halfway through the state government’s five-year term and ahead of the upcoming Panchayati Raj elections.
The BJP’s tally includes six municipal corporations, 31 municipal councils and 162 municipalities. The Congress has secured 94 urban bodies, while other parties and independents have won eight. The BJP won 4,179 of the 10,244 wards for which results were declared, while the Congress won 3,613 and independents secured 2,273. The BJP polled 35.18% of the vote across the 309 urban bodies, compared with 34.24% for the Congress. Independents accounted for 27.38%.
The urban-body tally needs to be read along with the ward-level numbers.
The Congress retained Bikaner, where its candidate Anil Kalla defeated BJP’s Surendra Singh Shekhawat 50-30 in the 80-member corporation. He has also said that his government has completed 78% of the promises made in its election manifesto. The BJP failed to secure every urban body, and independents won 2,273 wards.
Party candidates have won the mayoral posts in Ajmer, Alwar, Bharatpur, Bhilwara, Pali and Udaipur. During the campaign, Sharma addressed rallies and held roadshows across the municipal corporation areas and released the party’s urban local-body vision document. The Congress retained Bikaner’s mayoral post, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won its first municipal council board in Rajasthan in Baran.
BJP’s State President Madan Rathore said the party was confident of performing well in the next round of rural local elections. The municipal corporation results have also gone largely in the BJP’s favour so far. The elections were the first major urban local-body test for the BJP government after it completed roughly half of its term. He credited the BJP’s performance to the work of the government, party workers and elected representatives. The result also has local exceptions.
BJP leaders have described the result as support for the party’s work in Rajasthan and a positive sign before the Panchayati Raj elections.
