Team News Riveting
Bhopal, July 17
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has bagged seven out of 11 municipal corporations in the local body elections.
The civic bodies elections in Madhya Pradesh were held for 413 municipalities, including 16 Nagar Palika Nigam, 99 Nagar Palika Parishad and 298 Nagar Parishad in two phases on July 6 and 13. In the first phase, polling was held in 11 municipal corporations. The counting of votes took place today.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday termed the BJP’s performance in the local body polls in the state as “historic” and claimed that people from urban and rural areas voted in favour of the ruling party.
He said the party has won over 80 per cent seats in the nagar panchayat and nagar parishad polls and also performed very well in the 11 municipal corporations as well.
Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath said he was encouraged with his party’s performance in the civic polls.
The Congress said its’ Mayor would be sitting in Gwalior after 57 years, Jabalpur after 23 years and Chhindwara, a bastion of the party’s state unit chief Kamal Nath, for the first time.
“The result is encouraging for the Congress. We have won three mayoral elections – in Chhindwara, Jabalpur and Gwalior. A large number of our corporators have won the civic body elections too. We won the top post of Gwalior city after 50 years,” Kamal Nath told reporters. He charged that BJP manipulated the elections with the help of police and administration.
“We are going to review the results of Bhopal and Indore (where the BJP has established a decisive lead in mayoral elections),” he added.
On the Congress’s loss of Burhanpur mayoral election, he said that the BJP’s “B team” – the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeens (AIMIM) made the difference.
Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, which contested the civic polls in MP for the first time, bagged the mayoral post in Singrauli.
