JAIPUR—In a neck-and-neck electoral race, ruling BJP won 1,443 out of the total of 3,351 wards while opposition parties including Congress and Independents won 1,908 wards in the Rajasthan civic body polls, results for which were announced on Thursday.
“A big thank you to people of Rajasthan. Congrats to Rajasthan BJP workers & leaders on the commendable performance in the civic polls,” Modi tweeted about the results in which BJP emerged ahead in 60 out of 129 municipal bodies but suffered setback in Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s pocket-borough of Dholpur and Jhalawar where it was defeated.
BJP and Congress targeted each other over Rajasthan civic poll results even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked people of the state and his party workers for a ‘commendable’ performance.
Congress, which was routed in the Lok Sabha elections last year, made significant gains attaining or nearing majority in around 40 bodies and was neck and neck with BJP in 17 bodies. Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the results and trends of Rajasthan civic body polls showed how people replied to the Congress campaign of last two-three months against Raje over Lalit Modi controversy.
He reminded that BJP had recently won civic body polls in Madhya Pradesh as well despite the Congress campaign against its Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over Vyapam scam. On the other hand, Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot, said, “the BJP got only 36% votes and Congress is only around two per cent less than it. Overall 64% people have voted against the BJP, which shows the mood of the people.”
Latching on to BJP’s loss in Raje’s constituency, Pilot said, “Congresss won both the Municpal Council seats in the CM’s constituency while it also won both seats in Lok Sabha MP Dushyant Singh’s constituency. This reflects the hard work of Congress workers. We have come a long way from our performance during last Assembly polls.”
The 129 civic bodies in the state had gone to polls on 17 August. In the final tally of results, out of 3,351 wards in the civic bodies including the Ajmer Municipal Corporation, BJP won 1,443 wards, Congress 1,164, Independents 703, NCP 19, BSP 16, CPI 5 and CPM one ward, according a Rajasthan State Election Commission spokesman in Jaipur.
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