Chandigarh, (Samajweekly) In another humiliating defeat to Haryana’s ruling BJP-JJP combine, it lost mayoral polls in two municipal corporations but won in one civic body on Wednesday.
The opposition Congress won the post of Mayor for the Sonepat Municipal Corporation, while the BJP won the post in Panchkula Municipal Corporation.
In the Ambala Municipal Corporation, victory belonged to the Haryana Jan Chetna Party of Venod Sharma, who had left the Congress party in 2013 and formed his own party. Shakti Rani Sharma of the Haryana Jan Chetna Party defeated the BJP’s Vandana Sharma in the election by a margin of over 7,000 votes.
BJP’s Kulbhushan Goyal won the Panchkula mayoral election by defeating Congress’ Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia by a margin of 2,057 votes. Goyal got 49,860 votes, while Ahluwalia polled 47,803 votes.
Congress’ Nikhil Madaan defeated BJP’s candidate Lalit Batra by a margin of 13,818 votes in Sonepat for the mayor seat.
However, in the Rewari Municipal Council, the BJP won the post of Chairperson. BJP’s Poonam Yadav defeated Independent Upma Yadav by 2,087 votes. The Congress was third on this seat.
In the Uklana municipal committee election, independent candidate Sushil Sahu defeated BJP’s ally Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) candidate Mahender Soni for the President’s post.
In Sampla, independent candidate Pooja, who was backed by former Chief Minister and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, defeated the BJP nominee for the President’s post.
In the Dharuhera Municipal Committee election in Rewari district, independent nominee Kanwar Singh became the President by defeating nearest rival and BJP candidate Sandeep Bohra by 632 votes.
Singh got 3,048 votes, while Bohra got 2,416 votes and JJP’s Man Singh got 1,657 votes.
Nearly 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the elections to municipal bodies on Sunday.
The BJP had pitted candidates for the mayor post on all three municipal corporation seats, apart from the President candidate for the municipal council of Rewari.
It contested the ward elections too but the main opposition Congress contested only the mayoral elections on the three corporations and President’s election in the municipal council of Rewari.
The JJP contested the President’s election in Dharuhera and Uklana municipal committees.
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) had boycotted the municipal polls in protest against the alleged atrocities committed on farmers by the Centre.
This has been the second defeat to the BJP-JJP alliance since they came to power in the state in October 2019.
Last month, Congress candidate Indu Raj Narwal defeated his nearest rival and BJP nominee Yogeshwar Dutt in the Baroda Assembly seat with a margin of over 10,000 votes.
Upbeat over the party’s victory in the Sonepat Municipal Corporation, Congress leader Bhupinder Hooda told the media that after the Baroda byelection, the people of Sonepat have given a “befitting reply” to the coalition government in the municipal elections.
