The Statesman 30.04.2013
BJP wins four mayoral seats in U’khand local body elections
DEHRADUN, 30 APRIL: The Bharatiya Janata Party put one over the ruling Congress in the state, winning four out of six mayoral seats in the local body elections in Uttarakhand, including the prestigious Dehradun Nagar Nigam mayoral seat where the BJP's sitting candidate, Mr Vinod Chamoli created history by winning the seat for the second consecutive time.
In the 31 Nagar Palika and Nagar Panchayat seats (of a total of 69) for which the results have been declared so far it is almost a tie with the Congress winning 12 seats while 11 went into the BJP's kitty. Mr Chamoli got a thumping victory in the Dehradun Nagar Nigam mayoral election, defeating Mr Surya Kant Dhasmana of the Congress by a margin of 23,000 votes. While congratulating the BJP candidate on his win, Mr Dhasmana said he accepted the people`s mandate but added that the party would examine the reasons for the defeat. The party leaders feel that the BSP had taken away a large share of the votes from the Congress leading to this unexpected result in Dehradun.
BJP candidates also won the mayor`s seats in Hardwar. Roorkee and Haldwani. However, the counting for the two Nagar Nigam seats of Kashipur and Rudrapur will be done later as a large number of votes here are postal ballots. In Haldwani, Jogendra Rautela got a marginal win by defeating the Samajwadi party candidate by just 1409 votes. The Roorkee mayor`s seat was captured by Mr Yaspal Rana of BJP, overcoming a tough challenge from his Congress counterpart. These local body elections which were considered as a litmus test for the BJP and a referendum on a year's rule by the Congress government have not given enough reasons for either of the arch rivals to rejoice.
While BJP made a clean sweep in the Nagar Nigam seats wining all four for which the results have been declared so far, Congress got a slight edge on the seats of Nagar Palika and Nagar panchayats. Congress won 12 of these seats and BJP won in just 11, while eight have been captured by the independents. The real picture will be clear by Wednesday when the final counting should be over.
