Ruling BJP on Wednesday swept the mayoral elections in five cities in Haryana, with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar terming it as an endorsement of the policies and development agenda of the government by the people.
The party’s mayoral candidates from Hisar, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak and Yamunanagar registered emphatic wins.
Though opposition Congress did not contest these polls, some of its leaders extended support to independents. The INLD-BSP combine, which was contesting some of the mayoral seats on party symbol, faced a severe beating and was even behind the independents.
It was the first time that mayors of the five municipal corporations were elected directly. Earlier, the councillors used to elect the mayor. Also the Haryana Election Commission had decided to treat ‘none-of-the-above’ or NOTA option as a “fictional candidate”, making it must for winning candidates to secure more votes than those cast for NOTA. In case, NOTA would have got more votes, the election would have been held afresh.
The election was considered a battle of prestige for the chief minister who had campaigned extensively.
Asked if there was a possibility that Assembly polls, which are due in October next year, would be held together with the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Khattar tld reporters, “If there is any proposal from the Centre’s side, we are ready (for the assembly polls). But on our part, we have said these polls will be held as per schedule.”
From Panipat, Avneet Kaur registered a massive victory over her nearest rival Anshu Kaur, who was backed by a local Congress leader, The BJP candidate had polled 1,26,321 votes and won by a margin of 74,940 votes.
Immediately after her win, Avneet said among her immediate priority will be to come up with a plan to decongest traffic in Panipat city.
From Khattar’s home constituency Karnal, Renu Bala Gupta overcame a combined opposition challenge. She defeated Asha Wadhwa, who was supported by Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress, by a margin of 9,348 votes.
Gautam Sardana defeated Rekha Aren by a margin of 28,091 votes to register win from Hisar, where the rival candidate was supported by two senior Congress leaders from there.
Manmohan Goyal defeated Congress-supported Sita Ram from Rohtak by a margin of 14,776 votes while in Yamunanagar, Madan Singh defeated Rakesh Kumar.
There are 10 municipal corporations in the state and polls were earlier held in Gurugram and Faridabad. Due to delimitation exercise and related litigation, municipal polls are yet to be held in Sonepat MC, Panchkula and Ambala.
Expressing happiness over the election results, Khattar told reporters, “I congratulate the people of Haryana. Our candidates have registered wins at five places while majority of our councilors too have won. This is victory of people of Haryana, victory of our workers.”
“People have endorsed our government’s policies, our development agenda and various initiatives which we have taken to take the state forward during the past four years. It is a stamp of approval from the public’ This is victory of our government’s achievements. To serve people has been our priority and will remain so in future also,” he said.
Opposition parties had targeted the chief minister for allegedly playing ‘Punjabi’ card to woo the urban voters in these polls. Khattar was asked about a controversial advertisement for which Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had targeted him during his Sonepat visit a few days ago.
Referring to advertisements in two Hindi newspapers, Kejriwal had said on Sunday, the day when civic polls were held, that “the advertisements say that after a gap of 52 years Haryana has got a chief minister belonging to the Punjabi community. If you commit a mistake today, then in another 60 years you will not get a Punjabi chief minister”.
Khattar said he had nothing to do with that particular advertisement and that people issue advertisements on their own.
“I have nothing to do with that,” he said.
Highlights:
Panipat
Ward 1: BJP’s Anita Pruthi wins
Ward 2: BJP’s Pawan Balmiki wins
Ward 7: BJP’s Ashok Kataria wins
Ward 5: BJP’s Anil Bajaj wins
Ward 3: BJP’s Anjali Sharma wins
Ward 6: BJP’s Ravinder wins
Ward 10: BJP’s Ravinder Bhatia wins
Ward 7: BJP’s Ashok Kataria wins
Ward 8: BJP’s Chanchal Sehgal wins
Ward 21: BJP’s Sanjeev Dahiya wins
Ward 12: BJP’s Satish Saini wins
Ward 11: BJP’s Komal Saini wins
Ward 22: Independent Chanchal Dawar wins
Ward 17: BJP’s Pramod Devi wins
Rohtak
BJP mayoral nominee Manmohan Goyal elected mayor of Rohtak municipal corporation
Defeats Congress-supported candidate Sita Ram Sachdeva 14,776 votes
Yamunanagar
BJP’s Praveen Kumar Pinni wins from Ward No 2
BJP’s Preeti Jauhar wins from Ward No 6
Harmeet Kaur Kohli of Congress wins from Ward 3
Devender Singh of Congress wins from Ward 4
Vinay Kamboj of Congress wins from Ward 5
Ramashray of BJP wins from Ward 7
BJP’s Bhavna wins from Ward 9
Surinder Sharma of BJP wins from Ward 10
BJP’s Rani Kalra wins from Ward 14
Karnal
BJP Ward 1 councillor candidate Naveen Kumar wins
BJP candidate Naveen Kumar and independent Subhash Coach from ward 1 get equal votes (2,293). Winner declared by toss
Independent candidate from ward 3 Manjit Kaur Lather wins. She received 3,384 votes
Independent from Ward 4 Neelam Notana wins
Independent from Ward 1 Subhash Coach, who lost seat by toss, said he would demand re-counting
BJP candidate for councillor from Ward 5 Jaibhagwan wins
Independent candidate from Ward 2 Balwinder Singh wins
BJP candidate from Ward 6 Neelam wins
Independent candidate Sudarshan Kalra wins from Ward 7
BJP candidate from Ward 8 Megha Bhandari wins
BJP mayor candidate Renu Bala Gupta wins by 9,348
Gupta receives 69,960, Asha Wadhwa receives 60,612, Komal Chandel 10,019, Beant Kaur 7,336.
— With PTI inputs
