On day two of counting, BJP saves some pride

At a hurriedly called press conference, BJP state president KalrajMishra and Chief Minister Rajnath Singh expressed satisfaction. In the election in 1995, the BJP had won eight mayoral posts, 73 Nagarpalika Parishads and 104 Nagar Panchayats, they said, adding 73 Parishads included 35 of Uttaranchal.

Both the BJP leaders claimed that their party’s support base had increasedgoing by the poll results. People have reposed their faith in their party, they claimed.

Rajnath Singh said though these elections were not fought on the state andnational issues, his party had fared much better than the 1995elections. Lashing out at those who were calling his party a sinkingship, he said his party would sweep the Assembly elections inMarch 2002.

He gave the credit for the party’s performance to Kalraj Mishra andhis team of workers, Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon and formerstate party president Om Prakash Singh. The Gorakhpur mayoral result was really humiliating for us, Rajnath Singh said, adding “We will learn a lesson and try to prevent such a situation in future.”

The BJP candidates for the Mayoral seats have emerged victorious inVaranasi, Lucknow, Aligarh, Agra, Ghaziabad and Moradabad. Its candidate Sarala Singh is neck-and-neck with the Congress’ nominee Anil Kumar Sharma inKanpur. In Bareilly, BJP rebel I.S. Tomar has won as an independent .SP candidate has won in Allahabad and the Bahujan Samaj Party nominee inMeerut. Eunuch Asha Devi alias Amarnath Yadav has won by a margin of 65,304votes in Gorakhpur where the major parties including SP lost the deposit.

In this election, Independents have won in large numbers. Among 284 corporator seats for which results have been declared so far, 29 are independents. Among the 178 Parishad chairpersons declared elected, 53are independents and among Panchayat chairpersons, 63 are independents.Results for 1,548 posts of Palika and Panchayat members have beendeclared. Surprisingly, 1,470 of them are independents.The SP has so far cornered 64 posts of Palika and Panchayat chairpersonsposts, the BSP 43, and the Congress 23.