Uttarakhand local body polls: BJP wins 10 out of 11 mayoral seats, Cong draws blank

Polling to 11 municipal corporations, 43 municipal councils, and 46 nagar panchayats was held by ballot on Thursday

Updated on: Jan 26, 2025, 18:02:05 IST

By HT News Desk

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday swept the urban local bodies polls in Uttarakhand, winning 10 out of 11 mayoral seats.

The ruling BJP won 10 mayoral seats, while an independent candidate bagged the Srinagar mayoral seat in Pauri district, state election commissioner Sushil Kumar was quoted by PTI as saying.

The BJP won 10 mayoral seats, an Independent candidate bagged the remaining seat (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

The counting of votes, which began on Saturday, is still underway, and the results of all the 100 urban local bodies that went to the polls on January 23 are likely to be out by late afternoon.

Polling to 11 municipal corporations, 43 municipal councils, and 46 nagar panchayats was held by ballot on Thursday. The election saw 65.4 per cent of voters exercising their franchise, the PTI report added.

A total of 5,405 candidates, including 72 running for 11 mayoral posts, 445 for municipal council chairperson and 4,888 for municipal councillors and members, were in the fray.

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The mayoral seats won by the BJP included Dehradun (Saurabh Thapliyal), Rishikesh (Shambhu Paswan), Kashipur (Dipak Bali), Haridwar (Kiran Jaisdal), Roorkee (Anita Devi), Kotdwar (Shailendra Rawat), Rudrapur (Vikas Sharma), Almora (Ajay Verma), Pithoragarh (Kalpana Devlal), and Haldwani (Gajraj Bisht).

Arti Bhandari, an Independent nominee, won the Srinagar mayoral seat in Pauri district.

Congress draws blank in Uttarakhand urban body polls

Congress, which won two mayoral seats in the last urban local body polls held in 2018, drew a blank this time. In municipal councils too, it finished third behind the BJP and independents.

In the run-up to the urban local body polls, the BJP had sought votes in the name of a triple-engine government to keep the pace of development "uninterrupted" in the state.

“Heartiest congratulations to all the winning candidates of BJP. People have elected capable public representatives. Now it is the job of all the elected representatives to speed up development in their respective areas and strengthen the system,” Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said.

"Our aim is to implement the concept of clean and green city on the ground through municipal bodies so that tourists coming to the state from across the country and abroad return with positive and inspiring experiences," Dhami added.

He also thanked the state election commission for holding the polls peacefully.

(With PTI inputs)

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HT News Desk
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