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Samajwadi Party suffers reverses in mayoral polls

Atiq Khan

But it surges ahead in elections to Nagar Palika and Nagar Panchayats

LUCKNOW: Even as the ruling Samajwadi Party suffered reverses in the 12 mayoral elections in Uttar Pradesh, it came back strongly in the elections to the Nagar Palika Parishads and Nagar Panchayats (semi-urban and town areas) having surged ahead of its electoral rivals, the BJP and the Congress. In the corporators' elections in the 12 Municipal Corporations (Nagar Nigams), the ruling party's tally, according to the latest available information, was second behind the BJP's.

In the mayoral polls it was the BJP that virtually swept its adversaries by winning five mayors' seats and established a decisive lead over its rivals on two others.

While the Samajwadi Party had to rest content with the Moradabad seat, the Congress cashed in on the anti-incumbency factor in the urban areas by triumphing in Bareilly and Allahabad.

According to information available from the State Election Commission, the Congress was likely to add the Jhansi mayor's seat to its kitty where its candidate was leading over his nearest SP rival by about 25,000 votes. The BJP was ahead of the Congress in Meerut and Kanpur. The party had won the Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Agra, Varanasi and Gorakhpur mayoral polls.

For the crucial mayor's seat in Lucknow there was a neck-and-neck race between the BJP's Dinesh Sharma and the Congress' Manzoor Ahmed with the former leading by 6,400 votes. Here the Samajwadi Party, which had fielded Madhu Gupta, was trailing behind the BJP and Congress candidates.

Populist schemes

The Samajwadi Party's dismal performance in the mayoral elections comes against the background of the populist Kanya Vidya Dhan and unemployment allowance schemes of Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Opposition parties had alleged that these schemes were meant to lure the urban voters, particularly the youth. Mr. Yadav was also on record claiming that this time round the SP would get urban votes, which is why the Congress and the BJP were worried.

Mr. Yadav's brother, PWD and Energy Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, said at a press conference here on Tuesday that the party was not unduly worried by the setback. He described the SP's performance as "no-profit, no-loss" since the party had won one mayor's election in the 2000 local bodies elections and this time round too it won a single seat.

He, however, played down the party's reverses in the SP strongholds of Mainpuri, Etah and Auraiya, and the fact that several Samajwadi rebels, including a close relative of the Chief Minister's wife (he won the Bidhuna Nagar Panchayat chairman's election in Auraiya district) won at the expense of the official candidates.

Describing the BJP's showing and the SP's performance in the mayoral polls as a referendum on the Mulayam Government, BJP State president Kesari Nath Tripathi said the results had proved pre-poll predictions wrong which had written off the BJP.

He claimed that the BJP had won 52 Nagar Palika chairmen posts and around 70 Nagar Panchayat president seats.

The SP claimed that 81 party candidates were elected Nagar Palika Parishad chairmen and 185 Nagar Panchayat chairmen.

Though the Congress failed to win even a single seat out of the five Nagar Panchayat chairman posts and one Nagar Palika Parishad chairman's post in Sultanpur district, incorporating the Amethi parliamentary constituency of Rahul Gandhi, its performance in the mayoral and corporators' elections suggested that the urban voters had shed their diffident approach towards the party.

Meanwhile, in the 447 wards of eight Municipal Corporations whose results have been declared so far, the BJP had won 137, SP 106, Congress 54 and Independents 138. The RLD had won eight seats.

In the Nagar Palika Parishad polls, the SP had won 273, BJP 232,Congress 81 and Independents a staggering 1,359. The SP's tally in Nagar Panchayat elections was 300, followed by the BJP with 200, Congress 96 and Independents 1,702. While the SP had won 43 Nagar Panchayat and 25 NPP chairmen's posts, the BJP had bagged 28 and 13, and the Congress 14 and six, respectively.

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Samajwadi Party suffers reverses in mayoral polls

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