For first time, BJP to form board in 13 Municipal Corporations of UP

As BJP on Saturday registered a resounding victory in Uttar Pradesh’s Urban Local Body polls, the saffron party would form boards on its own in 13 municipal corporations. Notably, BJP won all 17 mayoral posts in the urban local bodies elections in Uttar Pradesh. 

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's appeal to the masses to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party's mayoral candidates and elect a BJP board in municipal corporations was well-received by the people of Uttar Pradesh, who have ensured that opposition parties were kept out completely from some of the boards while all the 17 mayors were from the party. For instance, in Jhansi and the newly created Shahjahanpur Municipal Corporation, not a single Samajwadi Party councillor won. 

In UP's Urban Local Body polls, BJP councillors constitute over 50% of the board in 13 of 17 municipal corporations in the state. The saffron party won 80 and 63 councillor seats out of 110 seats each in Lucknow and Kanpur respectively. The BJP candidates also bagged 63, 66, 56 and 58 seats out of 100 seats each in Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Prayagraj and Agra respectively. The party also won 42 and 51 councillor seats out of 80 seats each in Gorakhpur and Bareilly respectively. Notably, the victory of the BJP marks the victory of CM Yogi's faith in his mission of development.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party (SP) reduced to zero seats in both Jhansi and Shahjahanpur Municipal Corporations while people preferred independent candidates to that of SP, BSP and the Congress on many seats. It is worth noting that BSP councillor candidates drew a blank in Kanpur, Varanasi and Bareilly while Congress candidates could not even open their accounts in Ayodhya and Saharanpur.

BJP sweeps local body polls, wins all 17 mayor seats 

According to State Election Commission (SEC), the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh won 813 out of the 1,420 seats in the corporators category in the state's urban local body polls, while the opposition Samajwadi Party bagged 191 and the Bahujan Samaj Party 85.

The BJP registered win all the 17 mayoral seats in the state  -- Varanasi, Lucknow, Ayodhya, Jhansi, Bareilly, Mathura-Vrindavan, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Shahjahanpur, Ghaziabad, Agra, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Firozabad and Meerut.

After the results were declared, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath thanked the people of Uttar Pradesh and congratulated BJP workers for forming a 'triple-engine government' in the state. Triple-engine is a term being used by BJP leaders to refer to the party ruling at the Centre, state and local levels.