BJP rebels in U.P. capital face defeat in civic polls

It was unlike the last civic polls of 2017 when many such candidates had emerged victorious as independents after being denied BJP tickets

Some of the 35 rebels that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had expelled before the urban local body polls in the state capital earlier this month contested as independents but lost to the candidates of their own former party.

Lucknow went to poll in the first phase of civic election on May 4. (HT file)

It was unlike the last civic polls of 2017 when many such candidates had emerged victorious as independents after being denied BJP tickets. This time, Dilip Srivastava, the former corporator of Maithilisharan Gupta ward who had won the seat on BJP ticket in 2012 and 2017, contested as an independent against the BJP candidate. He not only lost but was pushed to third place.

Similarly, BJP’s Suresh Chandra Awasthi, who had been a 4-time corporator winning the civic election for the last 20 years from Mahakavi Jaishankar Prasad ward, was denied BJP ticket this time. He too contested as an independent but lost to Swadesh Singh of BJP by the margin of 1,813 votes.

Another two-time corporator of BJP Anurag Pandey contested as an independent from Mallahitola I ward but lost to official BJP candidate Chandra Bahadur Singh. Meanwhile Amit Maurya, the corporator from Faizullahganj II ward, fielded his mother as an independent but she also lost to Priyanka of the BJP.

Former Lucknow mayor and former deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma said, “All political parties faced the problem of rebels in the civic polls but BJP has overcome the problem in a better way.”

Those expelled from the BJP on May 1 included corporators Dilip Srivastava, Amit Maurya, Subhashini Maurya, former deputy mayor Suresh Awasthi, former corporator Anurag Pandey, Amit Sonkar, Bharat Rajput Vijay Mishra among others.