BJP dominates, AAP rises and Congress falls in Gujarat civic polls

Gandhinagar

The Bhartiya Janata party continued to dominate the political spectrum in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat where it won 6,234 of the 8,470 seats of the latest local elections to Nagar Palika, taluka panchayat and district panchayat, the results of which were declared late Tuesday night.

The BJP gained majority in 31district panchayats as well as in 196 out of 231 taluka panchayats and 74 out of 81 municipalities. The Congress, the main opposition party in the state won a clear majority in only one municipality and 18 taluka panchayats, while AIMIM and AAP also made their presence felt.

The party has already gained control on 75 of the 81 Municipal bodies while Congress has shrunk to four and the Aam Aadmi Party has thrown a big surprise by emerging as a dominating force in 2 bodies.

In the Sunday election, again the biggest debacle came for Congress party that won on 1,805 seat as the Aam Aadmi Party emerged as a rising power with winning 42 seats.

Last week BJP swept polls across six key municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Vadodara, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar, winning 483 of 576 seats. AAP registered its presence in Surat by winning 27 seats at the cost of the Congress, which failed to win any in that town.

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Tuesday congratulated his party workers for their performance in the state's recent local body polls and said that the people of the state have wiped out the Congress party.

This is an encouraging trend for India’s ruling party in Gujarat where elections are due next year.

"The manner in which the people of Gujarat have wiped out Congress, with passion, shows that Gujarat has a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party," Rupani said in Gujarati.

Speaking about Congress, Rupani said: "Congress is like a sinking boat. Gujarat's results have clearly shown this."

After securing 42 seats in the elections, the AAP leaders in Gujarat said the party plans to project itself as the main opposition in the state, replacing the Congress.

Gujarat in-charge of the party Gulab Singh said, "10 days before, we were not in a position to say clearly what is going to happen? But, now we can say that our party has been established in the state. We picked up issues of people and raised them wherever it was possible. Though, we were not in any institutions (Assembly of Municipal bodies), but we played the role of Opposition on roads, faced water cannon and lathi charge from the police. Now we are confident that our strategy was successful and secured the victory which will setup a roadmap for Assembly polls."

Riding on the victory in the local body polls, party leaders believe that they have 20 months to establish the party as the main Opposition.